Humanities/Social Sciences/Management - VRUgrad.vru.ac.th/nigrc2016/ProceedingsNIGRC/iGRC2016/8 PHE...Mandla Msimang show the Road Map of The ASEAN-ITU Seminar on ICT Accessibility

Graduate School

Valaya Alongkorn Rajabhat University under the Royal Patronage

POSTER PRESENTATION

Humanities/Social

Sciences/Management

การประชุมวิชาการเสนอผลงานวจิัยระดับบัณฑิตศึกษาแห่งชาติ ครัง้ที่ 41 และนานาชาติ ครั้งที่ 5 The 41st National and 5th International Graduate Research Conference

THAI CLOSED CAPTIONING: CASE STUDY OF THAI CLOSED

CAPTION’S PROTOTYPE FOR EDUCATIONAL FILM

Waiyawut Wuttiastasarn1 Wasan Sornkhieo2 and Sulaganya Punyayodhin 3

1 Photography and Cinematography Technology Program Faculty of Mass Communication Technology

Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi email [email protected] 2 Printing Technology Program Faculty of Mass Communication Technology Rajamangala University

of Technology Thanyaburi email [email protected] 3 Western Languages Program Faculty of Liberal Arts Rajamangala University of Technology

Thanyaburi email [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This research study primarily focuses on the topic of the caption that is suitable for the

Deaf’s educational film. The pre experiment is applied 15 students, that is designed to the first

prototype captioning. The 15 students, is designed to watch another prototype captioning. This

research with a higher education students and a diploma students. The Means, percentage,

frequency, and t - test were applied to analyses.

The resulted of the experiment is the first prototype captioning is better than the another

prototype captioning. The first one is the Edited Captioning and another one is the Verbatim

Captioning.

The Edited Captioning appropriate caption for use in the educational film. Because of

able to reduce a character for reading caption. The finding of this because the educational film is

a visual communication media then the deaf’s able to perceive. And the last reason is because

visual communication is more important in the Deaf’s perception.

Keywords: Closed Caption, Deaf, Educational film

Introduction

Hearing impaired or Deaf who was a people with disabilities

meaningful. In fact, Deaf had an organ voiced but senses of hearing was impaired. Then

they were losing the perception of sounds. It made the Deaf cannot say. For this reason,

the Deaf were looked like a moron. In spite of the brain could function normally.

( Ministry of Social Development and Human Security sited (2 5 4 9 ) Wuthiastasarn,

Waiyawut, The formal teaching to deaf people could communicated with another was

a special study. Sometimes we used inclusive education when the Deaf students learned

with the normal students in the same class room. But teaching the Deaf was very hard

to worked. Now a day the informal teaching is useful. This education approach makes

the Deaf learn by voluntary. It can be done on a regular basis as required. A suitable

media for learning experience with the new education is a film. The film is a medium

rise to feelings of interactive audience. It can stimulate feelings of people effectively.

In the United States, the deaf has seen a character appears on the top or bottom

of the screen, the character on screen to display a dialogue or narrative voice and some

music it is called the Open Caption. (Konigsberg,1987, p. 274) In addition to television

overlay subtitles on the screen from special decoder that called Closed Captioning.

People who are Deaf or hearing impaired access the sound or the conversation by the

character on the bottom of the television screen. (Lazzaro, J., 2001, p. 50) So the film

for educational must be suitable for Deaf or hearing impaired to access the media.


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Since 1980 the United States government has the invention for Deaf and since

1960, the branch of special education was taught Deaf with open caption in a 18 mm.

film. And the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) support Captioning by

“The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1 9 9 0 ” This act to force the TV screen size

larger 32 inch will be set a closed caption decoder installed inside all of them in the

United States. Then Deaf people can see the conversations or narrative sound through

the text in TV. Screen. The subtitle for the movie (film for instruction) that can be

viewed in many local libraries and the movie for entertainment too. The Deaf people in

can access both film in the United States. (Thomas M. Shea,1997, p.190.)

Mandla Msimang show the Road Map of The ASEAN-ITU Seminar on ICT

Accessibility and Assistive Technologies for Equity in Society 25-26 August 2014 in

Bangkok Thailand.

The system of captioning include the words to make people who are Deaf or

who have hearing impaired access the messages. The characters of subtitles at the

bottom of the television are watched with the picture movement on the screen. The

content of subtitling are include a dialogues, a narration, a music or special effects, or

the sound of atmospheres. Because the Deaf can not hear the sound, then his or her eyes

are a channel that is very important. The human visual system is a process that requires

numerous components of the both of human eye and brain. Focusing images is captured

the things outside like the film’s role in photography but the brain interpret the sing to

decoding in the mind. Then a characters of words are a factor in this study.

The system's capabilities include repeated the words of the move (captioning

systems) can make people who are deaf or who have hearing impaired access messages

in a dialogue conversation in television. The form of subtitles at the bottom of television

screen are important. Captioning are at least three lines, which are Unlike subtitles in

foreign films are only visible words, There are sound effects, music and the

environment of sounds are used in it. Essentially, this narrative can be divided into two

Type. The first is closed caption and the second is open caption, there are all to use the

term of captioning. The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990. Applicable to

television with a screen size larger than 32-inch all vending machines in the United

States. There will be a closed caption decoder installed inside the TV. (Lazzaro, Joseph

J.,2001, p.50-51.) Deaf people able to see the text in screen through the TV and

Transcoding to response the sounds. They get a sign from closed captions or captioning.

Subtitles for movies Classes (film for instruction) or to entertain them. Can be seen in

many local libraries in United States of America. (Thomas M. Shea, 1997, p.190.)

The idea of creating closed captions can use the ICT3. The ICT3 set subtitles

allow sufficient time for reading this. The number of words or 140 words per minute,

with a total of 690 characters. It takes two minutes and a half seconds per line. Eliminate

the obstacles to the audience by trying to use words that have meaning to the word

without censorship. Use words that can be read easily in speech and The relationship

with the image of the sound (Sound Effects). The time and position (Space) by the

presence of subtitles. The regulations of OFCOM from England applied to Thai

Captioning because of Thai does not have a Guidance subtitles for the Closed Captions

for Thai Deaf. The hearing impaired and Deaf therefore must be considered about the

Thai Character and the Structure of Thai letter which Vertical and which 3 lines in

Horizontal, First line, Second line, and Third line. (See Fig. 1)


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Fig.1: The Structure of Thai Character

Thai Characters are different form another because they are 3 lines while 1-2

line in US characters or Roman characters. There are used only 2 Lines, one is the

Under line and 2 is the Top line (See Fig. 2)

Fig.2: The US Characters

In addition, Thailand's uniqueness structural characters are more things to be

seen, which the characters may be displayed clearly or covert enough to read the letter.

This is the Captioning Idea in the prototype of Thai Captioning. Because The font of

Thai characters have many texture. There are head in the 3 lines while US characters or

Roman characters are only in the top or the under line. (See Fig. 3)

Third line

Second line

First line


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Fig.3: The Thai Characters

In addition to the characters already is the right thing to test. The size of the

letters on the captioning and the number of lines are useful to recall the letters of the

alphabet and the last factor, which colors of subtitles alphabet to fit in the media an

educational film for the hearing Impaired or the Deaf in Thailand.

Objective

To make the prototype of Closed Caption suitable Thai letter in Educational film for

Hearing Impaired

Methodology

This research study primarily focuses on the topic of the caption that is

suitable for the deaf’s educational film. The quasi experiment is applied by using group

post – test only design method. The experiment performs into the same groups. The

first experimental, 15 students, is designed to the prototype 1 caption . The second

experimental,15 students, is designed to watch the prototype 2 caption . The data is

collected from the deaf student by 15 higher education students and 15 diploma

students. The result is collected immediately after watching of the educational film.

Means of percentage, frequency, t - test were used to analysis the data.

Results

The results of the testing the elements of the Character’s Prototype of Caption

In Thai letter. There are the 5 factors. 1.The font, 2. The number of letter, 3. The size,

4. The color, and 5. The number of lines in The Thai characters. To test the prototype

subtitle in Thai font to suitable for the Thai hearing impaired and Thai Deaf.


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1.The font

The Thai characters letters subtitles that test by the hearing impaired in the field. Fonts

considering the uniqueness of the Thailand is the alphabet letters, so the design

experiments using subtitles alphabet Thai characters letters notched on the educational

film. Compared with the alphabet of Thai characters letters witch headless. The

description of statistics shown that Thai characters letters witch the notched that using

a font Cordia provides recognition of the Hearing Impaired best. (Sompong,Narong,

2527, p.186)

2. The number of letters

The result of the test from the hearing Impaired or Deaf people about the number of a

character based on one line. To compare with the number of letters in This is different

from the others. I found that the Thai characters letters number are less than 3 0

alphabets that is the best numbers for recognition. There are few than the US Deaf can

recall the amounts of alphabets because Thai Language is the second language in Deaf

people in Thailand. They use the Thai Sign Language in the mother language or Native

and Thai Reading is the second. The different of grammar or vocabulary is a boundary

to cross the edge of Thai language because of the mother tongue was developed from

another. The history of Thai Sign Language was born in US Sign Language for 6 0 s

year, this is more complex for read and catch up the Thai characters letters on

screen.(See Thomas M. Shea. , (1997))

3. The size

The test of Thai characters letters on screen by size. To comparison, the size in Thailand

character font. The size ½ inch is the best in the result of statistics test. This result is

likely to the research form The Thai Workshop about Video production for Educational

Media Production. That seminar Narong said that the Thai font may be 3 – 5 cm or ½

inch for Title.(Sompong, Narong, 2527, p.186)

4. The color

The color of the font bulk of the light is white colored gives the perception of hearing

impaired as well. The research test form the qualitative in interview the deaf people and

shown Thai characters letters subtitles more than 5 colors witch the hearing impaired

in the field. They asked the bright color of font example light blue, light green, but the

white is the best. Sometime fill black edge color witch a white alphabets to separate the

characters from the background in the screen. (Pitchayadeja, Patt, Interviewing)

5. The number of lines

The test letters subtitles for the hearing impaired in Thailand. The number of

lines By interviewing hearing impaired in the field. The number of lines, one line for

the hearing impaired perception may be best, but considering adding a second line in

the event of a long sentence. (Pitchayadeja, Patt, Interviewing)


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Discussion and Conclusion

When a character is appropriate I super imposed by editing to insert subtitles

in the educational film title “Film Processing” And then test with the Deaf students.

The results of students in vocational education shown that “The Edited Captioning

caption appropriate for use in the educational film.” . Then researcher test by the deaf

students by 15 higher education, the result are same. This is affected by the 5 elements

of factors 1.The font, 2. The number of letter, 3. The size, 4. The color, and 5. The

number of lines in The Thai characters. Because of there are able to suit to read the

alphabet easily by clear character(The font and size) by reduce a character for reading

caption (The number of letter and The number of lines). The Prototype of Thai

Character Captioning finding of this white alphabets to separate the characters from the

background because the educational film has many message or information on the

screen. It is a visual communication media then the deaf’s able to perceive and learn

with the captioning system together. And the last reason is the visual is important to

see but the sounds that contain the message are important too. Deaf saw Visual

communication on screen but they could not received the information example

Narration, Dialogue or the Environments from sounds. Captioning is the tool was

encoded that sound to “Latters” and they can decoded that sounds by “Reading”

References Konigsberg, Ira.(1987), Complete film dictionary. New York: A Meridian book.

Lazzaro, Joseph J. , (2001), Adaptive Technologies for Learning and Work

Environments. SecondEdition. Chicago and London: American Library

Association.

Ministry of Social Development and Human Security “The Social Situation Report

Progressive developmental disabilities 2547” Year 1 No. 4 July-September

2547(2004)

Narong Sompong,”The Thai Workshop about Video production for Educational Media

Production” Kasetsart University, 2527(1984)

Pitchayadeja, Patt, National Association of the Deaf in Thailand.(Interview)

Thomas M. Shea. (1997) , An Introduction to Special Education a Social System

Perspective.Second Edition, United States of America.

Waiyawut Wuthiastasarn “The Study of the Appropriate Caption for the Deaf’s

Perception of the Movie” Thesis Faculty of Journalism and Mass

Communication Thammasat University. 2549(2006)


IMPROVEMENT OF THE SAOPRATEEB PROGRAM

CHULACHOMKLAO ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY

Lieutenant Colonel Uthai Suwannavong, 2 Lecturer, Cadet Regiment King's Guard Chulachomklao

Royal Military Academy, Prommanee, Mueng, Nakornnayok 26000, Email: [email protected]

Cadet Thodsaporn Wongsrisang1

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to examine the teaching method implemented

in Saoprateeb Program of Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy (“Program”) and

to present the improvements made to the Program by the author. The author conducted

a thorough qualitative study by conducting in-depth interview and focus group

discussion, and drew conclusions from logically analyzed information gathered

thereby.

The study indicated that the teaching method so implemented at present

yielded with the low learning effectiveness. Students were found to lack critical

thinking capability and self-motivated learning skills. Moreover, the institution itself

was found having inadequate information management, lacked of learning monitoring

and lacked of presence in the education quality improvement. Teachers were unable to

encourage self-motivated analytical thinking of the students.

The improvements made to the Program effectively improved the

characteristics of the students, i.e., the students exhibited behaviors that were indicative

of being disciplined in both their actions and conversations. Students were able to

conduct themselves according to applicable customs and to maintain discipline among

their subordinates. Moreover, it was clearly noted that students have internally and

strongly adhere to their discipline which bars them from any misconduct or associations

with all vices.

Keywords: Improvement, Saoprateeb, Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy

Introduction

Thailand has entered into the era of digital information where the entire

world is linked together by the internet making available of a tremendous load of

information and boundless sharing of knowledge. The youth of this era must then

actively seek to equip themselves with adequate information to accomplish a

personalized goal of learning which in turns could enhance their competitiveness in the

world of information technology.

In this regard, educational institutions need to adapt to accommodate the

changing of learning methods. For examples, the implemented learning method that

used to be a fact-based learning may need to evolve into an idea-based learning. More

to the point, the level of class participation which used to be low in the passive learning

or transmitted learning regimes may need to be increased by way of implementing

active learning or mentoring learning regimes.

Furthermore, the learning method should encourage the establishment

of a self-determined purpose through real life implementation of theories. This can be

achieved by, inter alia, giving project assignments in which students could experiment

on the theories learned.


8

The Saoprateeb Program was established in 1987 (B.E. 2530) under the

royal patronage of H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn with the aim to provide

academic tutoring and discipline for children of the personnel of Chulachomklao Royal

Military Academy through Saturday school. The Program can be regarded as a

community education for community development which is a social phenomenon that

needs dynamic improvements. The program thus serves to encourage learning of the

community as a whole in order to derive true understanding of the problems and needs

of the community and to instill discipline, morals, loyalty to the country, religions and

the King to the youth attending the Program along the way. Enrollment also avails

access to academic tutoring to the youth in the area surrounding the Academy.

Residually, the Program also trains cadets in communicating and collaborating with the

local community which creates a strong tie between the community and the cadets.

However, the teaching and learning method of the Program were not

satisfactorily effective. The students were unable to conduct critical thinking which

resulted from unpreparedness of the institution and its teaching staff. The author thus

conducted a thorough investigation into the problem in order to offer solutions that

would improve the Program and to, in turns, derive the aforesaid intended outcome.

Research Objectives

1. To examine the teaching and learning methods implemented in the

Saoprateeb Program at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy.

2. To present the improvements made to the Saoprateeb Program at

Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy.

Methodology

The author conducted a qualitative study by reviewing related

documents (documentary research), theories and paradigms including interviewing

related parties (focus group) and experts in order to deeply comprehend related social

phenomenon. Information gathered was logically analyzed and the author was able to

draw intuitive conclusions to make further suggestions.

Furthermore, in order to include the students in the course of research,

the author has assigned teamwork activities such as book reviews and class

presentations. The success of learning improvement was evaluated by the improvement

in class attendance, successful assignments, and class participation and presentation.

Research Results

1. The teaching and learning method of the Program was not effective

to encourage real-life applications of classroom preaching. Students were behind in

their language skills and lacked of enthusiasm to involve themselves in the surrounding

communities and neighboring countries. The author shall further present the solutions

as follows.

2. The improvement of the Saoprateeb Program

In making improvements to the Program, especially the improvement of

learning effectiveness and the integration with the community, the author has studied

and analyzed the solutions implemented to improve the situations of the very same

nature in the schools surrounding military bases. These schools are the institutions

established to create a good understanding and a strong tie between the military and the


9

communities along the boarder where people of foreign tongues and ethnicity live so

that the military staff may carry out their duty smoothly. The author found that the said

solutions could be adapted to improve the Saoprateeb Program in the following ways.

2.1 Providing and promoting interdisciplinary education by changing

the teaching method and focusing on social studies, moral education and language skills

in Thai and foreign languages such as English to prepare the younger generation for

multinational society. This solution has also availed the Program to be the center of

knowledge in art, culture and racial diversity for the community.

Furthermore, in order to include the community into the Program and

the Academy, the author has included the teaching of local wisdom into the Program.

Children were taught of their forefather’s wisdom and ways to preserve it. This also

allowed cadets to understand the locals and thus were able to approach and treat them

properly. And, in order to ensure proper treatment among all, discipline should be

instilled to promote harmony and willingness to learn and understand one another.

2.2 Proving and promoting vocational learning by creating vocational

learning programs that suited the true needs of the community whereby the skills

learned were applicable in real-life. Employment for every skill was ensured, e.g.,

permanent repair and construction centers were established in schools to make jobs for

mechanics and foremen. The promotion of vocational learning should be implemented

together with raising awareness in preserving the nature and environment in order to

create a sense of social responsibility among the younger generations.

2.3 Leveling the management of surrounding schools to the standard by

making the Saoprateeb Program the community learning center and promoting other

schools to be the example in different areas. This task must be done in parallel with the

improvement of teaching staff. Teachers should be encouraged to pursue higher

academic credentials by making available scholarships for both undergraduate and post

graduate studies. Teachers would then have resources to better their teaching.

Moreover, their remunerations and welfare should be made competitive to that of the

teachers under the Ministry of Education which would greatly better their living

condition and give them strong moral support to carry on with their work.

This solution conformed to the study conducted by Wilailuk Khemwong

(B.E. 2547) on the correlations between personal factors and teaching behavior of the

teachers in the schools established under association with the Border Patrol Police in

the southern part of Thailand. Her study indicated that personal factors, characteristics,

attitude towards their profession, their motivations and health have positive correlations

with their teaching behavior which in turns positively improved the students learning.

2.4 Building educational collaborations by organizing knowledge

exchange activities and creating social ground where members of the community could

creatively come together.

Summary and Recommendations

As mentioned above that the aims of the Saoprateeb Program are to

instill discipline and morals, and, to academically educate the children of the personnel

of Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy in order to equip them with real-life

applicable knowledge and to groom them into a successful member of a community.

The author strongly believes that to derive these intended outcomes, students must be

disciplined and taught to adhere to morals.


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1. Being disciplined means to promptly follow a given order or to take

a proper action without a given order. It is a state of mind of obedience and compliance

expressed willingly and collectively.

In comparison with military principles, the discipline of the soldiers is

the guarantee of stability when operating under pressure. A disciplined platoon will be

able to carry out successful operations with or without surveillance. This is a result of

good training and good leadership that stand to push soldiers forward in combat and

prepare them to endure all the hardship. To accomplish this outcome, a leader must set

himself as an example by being just and impartial in both punishing and promoting a

subordinate. In this regard, a subordinate must monitor and maintain his own discipline,

encourage one another to improve and raise awareness in any disruptions of discipline.

2. Adhering to morals means to treat everyone with equal fairness and

to show love and kindness to all regardless of their race, gender, religion, status or any

differences. Using polite language and avoiding acting on anger. One shall not speak

ill of others nor talk behind their backs. To achieve this, the student may rely on

religious principles, the laws or customs when deciding fairness in all matters including

when deciding upon a promotion in order to derive a decision clean of all biases.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to express the deepest gratitude to the senior

commanding officers of Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, the staff of the

Department of Psychology and Military Leadership, Cadet Regiment King's Guard,

Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy and all peers who acknowledged the

importance of this research and spared their valuable time to participate in providing

information. Last but surely not least the author would like to thank his beloved late

parents Charee and Malai Suwannavong for bringing him into this world. The author

also thanked his siblings and, Boontan, Thongyu, Boonruang, Samran and La-ongkaew,

including Kunathip, Theerachai and Police Cadet Jakkrit for their strong moral support

through the journey towards his academic success. If this research is of benefit to any

party, the author would like to give the credit to these people.

References

Basic Science (2013). Sukhothai Thammatirat University. (12th ed.). p. 440.

Mathematics vol. 1- 6 (n.d.). Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and

Technology.

Mathematics vol. 7-12 (2016). Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and

Technology.

Ministry of education (n.d.). Thai language books vol. 1-6.

Programs for educational institute: Social studies grade 1-6 (2012).

Setthapong Malisuwan (n.d.). Thailand in the year 2025.

Suwit Maysinsri (2016). Thailand’s adaptation with the world’s changes.

Tosporn Wongsrisang (2016). Saoprateeb Program (Annual 2016).

https://www.facebook.com/crmapsychology/

https://www.facebook.com/crmapsychology/


TRANSLATION STRATEGIES OF FIRST AND SECOND-PERSON

SINGULAR PRONOUNS BASED ON SOCIAL FACTORS FROM ENGLISH

INTO THAI IN

JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL

Pawich Riangsiri1

1 English Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,


[email protected]

ABSTRACT The aims of this research are to investigate and study the strategies which

M.R. Kukrit Pramoch, the translator of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, adopted in the

translation of first and second-person singular pronouns. Here, the social factors which

include specific characteristics of interlocutors, relationships between interlocutors, and

various situations in which the conversations take place are collectively considered

when analyzing the target text. The data on the translation strategies were collected

through 51 translation pairs, focusing only on first and second-person singular

pronouns. The pairs were analyzed if the pronouns used in the target text (Thai) is

equivalent to those appear in the source text (English), in terms of social meanings.

Then, similar pronouns used in the target text were classified into groups for a better

understanding of the reader. The results reveal that the most frequent strategies which

the translators used for handling the translation of second-person singular pronouns

from English into Thai include the use of Thai pronouns: “ เจ้า , เอ็ง ,

ท่าน , เธอ , เรา ”, a kin term: “ลูก” , an occupation

term: “ ครู” , and omission. Regarding the strategies which the translator

used for translating first-person singular pronouns from English into Thai, they include

the use of Thai pronouns: “ผม , ท่าน , เธอ , ฉนั ”

and the use of an occupation term: “ครู” .

Keywords: translation strategies, social factors, first-person singular pronouns,

second-person singular pronouns

Introduction

A person cannot use the language of the same pattern in all conversations

taking place in various situations. Language can vary upon several factors: specific

characteristics of each speaker, relationships between the speaker and listener

(interlocutors), contexts and situations in which the conversations take place. These

factors give rise to linguistic variations which account for different surface structures

of a term that represent the same concept.

Regarding specific characteristics of a speaker, there are a lot of factors that

are involved in causing linguistic variations, e.g. gender, age, social class, region,

ethnicity, etc. For example, women tend to use higher-standard English compared to

men. Furthermore, the language adopted by most women is generally polite and sounds

sweet, characterized by the social norms and values expecting them to be a role model


12

for their children. On the contrary, men commonly use different language features to

show their strength and courage for they have been believed to be the leader and

guardian of the family (Prasithrathsint, 1998).

The relationship between the speaker and listener also play a pivotal role in

bringing about linguistic variation. This factor refers to the relationship between the

speaker and listener when compared. It affects social reactions between the speaker and

listener and the way they use several forms of language in conversations. Relationships

between the listener and speaker can be characterized by various factors such as social

roles (parents and children, teacher and student), social statuses (members of the royal

family and ordinary people), age (grandparents and grandchildren), etc. (Prasithrathsint,

1998: 104) In addition, Brown and Gilman (1960) (referred by Prasithrathsint, 1998:

106) also pointed out the social factors causing different patterns of relationship: power

and solidarity. Such factors result in three patterns of relationships: balanced (the

speaker and listener are of the same social status), imbalanced (the speaker and listener

are of different social statuses), and neutral (such as the relationship between service

providers and customers). These affect different linguistic variants to be selected when

creating a conversation, e.g. terms of address, pronouns, kin terms, final particles (when

translated into Thai), and so on.

On top of that, contexts and situations are the major focus that the researcher

will discuss in more detail along with some examples excerpted from “Jonathan

Livingston Seagull”. The concept of such factors underlines a variety of language used

by a particular speaker in various conversations, depending on topics or subject matters,

settings, purposes of communication, and characteristics of interlocutors which vary

upon age, gender, status, role, and the relationship between the speaker and listener.

(Srinarawat, 2008: 67) In the researcher’s point of view, these factors are very crucial

since they can give rise to language registers and other specific language features which

are often overlooked by most translators when an English text is translated into Thai.

Regarding to this, Saeng-aramruang (1999: 257) summarized the errors found in the

translation of a text from English into Thai, including grammatical errors, semantic

errors, stylistic errors, etc.

According to the results of Jahanshahi and Kafipour’s study of Error Analysis

of English Translation of Islamic Texts by Iranian Translators, published in Journal of

Applied Linguistics and Language Research Volume 2, Issue 3, 2015, pp. 238-252, it

reveals that the register category was the most frequent error area. In the same way, it

can also be stated, when an English text is translated into Thai, that a variety of language

caused by social contexts and situations are generally unconsciously overlooked by a

majority of translators or students studying translation courses.

From all the three cardinal factors which have previously discussed, they

create a lot of translation problems when a translator needs to convey or transfer

meanings into Thai, especially the Thai pronouns which are considered a kind of

address terms which can be categorized into 11 types according to Palakornkul (1972:

34-35). This kind of grammatical components is numerous and various in Thai, the

language rich in expressive terms, depending on social factors: specific characteristics

of interlocutors, relationships between interlocutors, and situations. However, some of

the researches conducted in this area generally focus on the study on linguistic variation

caused from specific characteristics of speakers: gender, age, social class, region,

ethnicity, etc. Accordingly, it is required that a research which further focuses on social


13

contexts and relationships between the interlocutors should be created to provide

translators, who are interested in exploring common errors regarding registers and other

variants which vary upon social contexts and situations, with useful translation

strategies so that they can produce the ideal translation which has the qualities of

accuracy, clarity, and naturalness based on the criteria of Larson (1984).

Research Objectives

1. To investigate and study the strategies adopted by M.R. Kukrit Pramoch, the

translator, when translating pronouns in Jonathan Livingston Seagull from the

English text written by Richard Bach into Thai

2. To investigate and study the translation strategies that the translator adopted

when facing problems arising from different specific features of English and

Thai

Methodology

The researcher collected the data on the strategies used in translating first and

second-person singular pronouns from “จอนะธัน ลิวิงสตัน นางนวล, the Thai version of

“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” translated by M.R. Kukrit Pramoch. Here, 51 translation

pairs were analyzed, one by one, to investigate the strategies that the translator used in

conveying the equivalent meaning of each first and second-person singular pronoun

into Thai, based on social factors. Then, the translation strategies were studied and

compared with the strategies provided by several translation theorists or professional

translators to see if they are in the same or different fashion. Finally, the data were

classified into groups with descriptions and explanations for a better understanding of

the readers, as presented in this particular research.

Research Results

From the story, it can be noticed that there are several types of

relationship reflected in every single conversation. Some remarkable relationships

between the characters which can be classified include the relationship between the

speaker and a superordinate: parents, teacher, leader, the elder, and the relationship

between the speaker and a subordinate: student, member of the family, member of the

flock. Besides, there is also the neutral relationship found in this research, for example,

the relationship between strangers meeting for the first time. Different types of

relationships, varying upon level of closeness, power, and solidarity, can cause

translation problems. Here, the researcher will only focused on two types of pronouns:

first and second-person singular pronouns for the findings can be beneficial to both

foreigners and Thai people who are interested in translating such problematic

grammatical components. The content provided below are the findings regarding the

translation of first and second-person singular pronouns presented in the form of

translation pairs (English and Thai) with explanations and analyses.

1. “เจ้า” is a common term that a superordinate generally uses to

address a subordinate. The term was used as a second-person singular pronoun

in two major different contexts in the TT as follows:


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1.1 According to the Royal Institute Dictionary, it is a second-person singular

pronoun used by a superordinate to politely address an affectionate

subordinate as can be seen in the following example excerpted below.

Relationship: Mother and son

Mother: Why can’t you leave low flying to the pelicans, the albatross? Why

don’t you eat? Jon, you’re bone and feathers!”

แม่: ทําไมไมทิ้งการบินต่างๆ เอาไวใหพวกนกกระทุงและนักอัลบารอส เขาทํากัน? ทําไม เจาไมกินอะไรเลย? จอน เจาผอมจนเหลือแตขนกับกระดูกแลว

From the given example, the language used in the target text is quite polite,

showing the features of standard forms of language used among women. This

generally stems from the reasons suggested by Holmes (2008: 164-172) explaining

that “Women are more status-conscious than men: they have to play the role as

guardian of society values and tend to use polite language to reflect their subordinate

social status compared to men.” In addition, the tone that the mother spoke to her son

in the target text sounds very soft and comfort, showing great love and care a mother

could give to her son.

In responding to the requests, Jonathan answered his mother politely using the

tone of voice that expresses respect to his mother. Here, the term “ผม” in Thai which

refers to a polite first-person singular pronoun used among men, according to the

Royal Thai Dictionary, was selected by the translator as can be seen in the example

excerpted below.

Relationship: Jonathan and his mother

Jonathan: “I don’t mind being bone and feathers, Mum. I just want to

know what I can do in the air and what I can’t, that’s all.

I just want to know.”

จอนะธัน: “ผมไม่ถือหรอกแม่ว่าผมจะเหลือแต่ขนกับกระดูก ผมเพียงแต่อยากรู้ ว่าผมจะทําอะไรได้บ้างและทําอะไรไม่ได้บ้างในอากาศ ผมอยากรู้เท่านั้นเอง”

1.2 According to the definition given by Sipachai (2016), “เจ้า” has

the same meaning as “มึง” mɯ̄ŋ in Thai. Both can be used as impolite or

rude address terms in the situation where the addresser is not pleased with

or has a sense of discrimination against the addressee. However, the term

“เจ้า” is quite less rude, to some degree, when compared with

“มึง” mɯ̄ŋ. In other words, it can be said that “เจ้า” is a more

polite version of “มึง” mɯ̄ŋ in the classic Thai language as can be seen in

the following example.

Relationship: The leader of the flock and Jonathan, a member of the flock

The Elder: “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” said the Elder, “Stand to Centre for

shame in the sight of your fellow gulls!”


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“... one day, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, you shall learn that

irresponsibility does not pay. Life is the unknown and the unknowable,

except that we are put into this world to eat, to stay alive as long as we

possibly can.”

ผู้ใหญ่นก: “จอนะธัน ลิวิงสตัน นางนวล” ผู้ใหญ่นกพูดขึ้น “ยืนตรงกลางด้วยความอับอายต่อหน้าเพื่อนนกนางนวลทั้งปวงของเจ้า!”

“...วันหนึ่ง จอนะธัน ลิวิงสตัน นางนวล เจ้าจะต้องรู้ว่าการขาดความรับผิดชอบนั้นไม่เกิดประโยชน์แก่ตนอย่างใดเลย ชีวิตเป็นสิ่งที่เราไม่รู้และรู้ไม่ได้ นอกจากว่าเราเกิดมาในโลกนี้เพ่ือกิน เพ่ือมีชีวิตอยู่ให้นานที่สุดที่เราจะอยู่ได้”

In responding to the accusation of the leader, Jonathan who was standing and

receiving the sentence in front of all the flock members, spoke politely to the leader. In

this case, he used the consultative register because it is a two-way communication. It

can be noticed that the term “ผม” was selected as the first-person singular pronoun to

refer to Jonathan because he was speaking to a superordinate, the leader of the flock, in

a quite formal setting. Therefore, he had to speak politely and use high-standard forms

of language as can be seen in the example excerpted below.

Jonathan: “Give me one chance, let me show you what I’ve found ...”

จอนะธัน: “ขอโอกาสให้ผมสักครั้ง ขอให้ผมได้ชี้แจงว่าผมได้พบอะไรเข้า...”

2. “ลูก” which has the denotative meaning as “child” in Thai. This term

is commonly used by a mother or a father as a second-person singular pronoun

to affectionately address their children. Moreover, other people can also use

this term in affectionately addressing a child, though he or she has no direct

relationship with them. An example where this term appears in the TT is when

Jonathan’s mother asked him to behave like the rest of the flock as can be seen

below.

Interlocutors: Jonathan’s mother and Jonathan

Mother: “Why, Jon, why?” his mother asked. “Why is it so hard to be

like the rest of the flock, Jon? แม่: “ทําไม จอน ทําไม?” แมของเขาถาม “ทําไมเจาจึงทําตัวใหเหมือนนกอ่ืนในฝูงเขา

ไมได? มันยากนักหรือลูก?

In responding to this question of his mother, Jonathan used the same term and

form of polite and standard language as previously discussed in 1.1.

3. “เอ็ง” is generally an impolite term in Thai used to address a second

person who the addresser is not pleased with. However, it can also be used by

a superordinate to affectionately address a subordinate in close relationships. It

is obvious that the term is widely used among men (father and son in this case)


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to show their maturity, truthfulness, strength, virility, and a remarkably close

relationship as the following example.

Interlocutors: Jonathan’s father and Jonathan

Father: “See here, Jonathan,” said his father, not unkindly. “Winter isn’t far

away. Boats will be few, and the surface fish will be swimming deep.

If you must study, then study food, and how to get it. This flying

business is all very well, but you can’t eat a glide, you know. Don’t

you forget that the reason you fly is to eat.”

พ่อ: “ฟังทางนี้บ้าง จอนะธัน” พ่อเขาพูดอย่างไม่ดุดันนัก “หน้าหนาวจะมาถึงอีกไม่นานนัก เรือปลาก็จะมีน้อยลง ปลาที่เคยว่ายบนผิวน้ําก็จะลงลึก ถ้าเอ็งอยากจะเรียนอะไรก็ควรจะเรียนเรื่องอาหารและการหากิน เรื่องการบินมันก็ดีอยู่หรอก แต่เอ็งจะกินการร่อนเข้าไปไม่ได้ อย่าลืมว่า เหตุที่เอ็งต้องบินก็เพ่ือหากินเท่านั้น”

From the conversation above, it can be noticed that the tone used by the father

was quite different from those used by the mother, which have already discussed in 1.1

and 2. That is to say, the language used among men tends to be in a vernacular form,

which is not admired overtly by the society as a whole (Holmes, 2008: 163). This

includes the use of impolite pronouns such as “เอ็ง” and “มึง” mɯ̄ŋ which are

normally used with people who the addressers are not pleased with to address a second

person, even with the ones they love, like their children or close friends. However, in

responding to this conversation, Jonathan, his son, used a form of language “ผม” that

is polite, showing respect to his father in the same fashion as those discussed in 1.1.

4. “ท่าน” is a very polite address term in Thai which has the meaning

close to “thou”. According to the Royal Institute Dictionary, this term can

actually be used in the two following ways: 4.1 It can be used as a neutral term to address a person meeting for the first

time as can be seen in the example below.

Interlocutors: Jonathan and two seagulls who he had never met before

Jonathan: He recovered to level flight and was quiet for a time before he spoke.

“Very well,” he said, “who are you?”

จอนะธัน: เขาคืนตัวมาเป็นการบินระดับและนิ่งเงียบอยู่พักหนึ่งก่อนที่จะพูด “เอาละ” เขาพูดขึ้น “ท่านเป็นใคร?”

In responding to the conversation created by a stranger (Jonathan) who they met

for the first time, the two seagulls used a consultative register, which is appropriate for

addressing a stranger, in the two-way communication. This includes the use of

appropriate pronouns that show respect and politeness to the addressee such as the ones

appearing in the example provided below.

Interlocutors: Two seagulls and Jonathan


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Seagulls: “We’re from your Flock, Jonathan. We are your brothers.” The words

were strong and calm. “We’ve come to take you higher, to take you

home.”

นางนวล: “เรามาจากฝูงของท่าน จอนะธัน เราเป็นพี่น้องท่าน” คําพูดนั้นเป็นคําพูดที่หนักแน่นและสงบ “เรามาเพ่ือนําตัวท่านให้ไปอยู่สูงกว่านี้ เรามาพาท่านกลับบ้าน”

In responding to the polite pronoun “ท่าน” , the two seagulls used the

same pronoun “ ท่ า น ” to show as polite tone and register as that used by

Jonathan. This normally happens when people meet for the first time, though the

equivalent and more widely used pronoun in the current Thai language tends to be “คุณ” [kʰun].

4.2 It can also be used as an extremely polite address term when meeting

highly respectful superordinate, regardless of how close the relationship is.

Interlocutors: Jonathan and Chiang, one of Jonathan’s teachers

Jonathan: “Can you teach me to fly like that?” Jonathan Seagull trembled to

conquer another unknown

จอนะธัน: “ท่านจะสอนให้ผมบินอย่างนั้นได้ไหมครับ?” จอนะธันนกนางนวลตัวสั่นเทิ้มท่ีจะเอาชนะสิ่งที่ตนยังไม่รู้อีกอย่างหนึ่ง

In responding to this conversation, the elder seagull used “เธอ” as

a second-person pronoun to show that he is superordinate to Jonathan, his student, as

can be seen in the example excerpted below.

Interlocutors: Chiang and Jonathan, his student

Chiang: “Of course, if you wish to learn.”

เจียง: “ได้ซี จะเป็นไรมี ถ้าเธออยากเรียน”

The reason behind such adoption of the term “เธอ” in this context

will be explained in the translation strategy shown below.

5. “เธอ” is the address term typically used among women. However,

according to the Royal Institute Dictionary, this term are commonly used to

address an affectionate subordinate, regardless of gender, as appearing in the

following example.

Interlocutors: Sullivan, a seagull who taught Jonathan flyting tips, and Jonathan

Sullivan: “I wonder about that, Jon,” said Sullivan, standing near. “You have

less fear of learning than any gull I’ve seen in ten thousand years.” The

Flock fell silent, and Jonathan fidgeted in embarrassment.

ซัลลิวัน: “ฉันไม่แน่ใจนักในเรื่องนั้น จอน” ซัลลิวันพูดข้ึนขณะที่เข้ามายืนอยู่ใกล้ เธอมีความกลัวการเรียนรู้น้อยกว่านกนางนวลตัวใดที่ฉันเคยรู้จักมาเป็นเวลาหมื่นปี” ฝูงนกนิ่งเงียบ และจอนะธันยืนบิดปีกบิดเท้าไปมาด้วยความเขิน


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In responding to this conversation, Jonathan, his student used the occupation

term “คร”ู which means “teacher” for the supporting reasons which will be

discussed later in the seventh translation strategy.

6. “เรา” can be a first-person singular or plural pronoun. According to

the Royal Institute Dictionary, this term is generally used to address a person

of the same social status: age, social class, educational background, etc.

However, this term can also be used as a second-person singular pronoun for

an authorized or powerful person to address a subordinate under his or her

control, e.g. the police and accused people, or for a merciful superordinate to

address an affectionate subordinate as can be seen the following example.

Interlocutors: Jonathan and Chiang, his teacher

Chiang: “Well, of course it works, Jon,” said Chiang. “It always works, when

you know what you’re doing. Now about your control ...”

เจียง: “ก็แน่ละซี จอน” เจียงกล่าว “ใช้การได้เสมอเมื่อเรามีสติรู้ว่าเรากําลังทําอะไรอยู่ ทีนี้พูดกันเรื่องการควบคุม...”

In responding to this conversation, Jonathan used the term “ผม”, which has

already been discussed in 1, as the first-person singular pronoun to show respect to a

superordinate, a teacher in this particular case.

7. “Occupation terms” are considered a type of pronoun used in addressing a

second person (Palakornkul, 1972: 34-35). Some occupation terms which

sound familiar to Thai people are such as “อาจารย์ (lecturer), สารวัตร (inspector), จ่า (sergeant), หมอ (doctor), ผู้จัดการ (manager), etc. An example of

the occupation term which was used as a second-person pronoun be the

translator is “คร”ู which has the denotative meaning as “teacher” in

the Thai language as shown below.

Interlocutors: Fletcher Lynd, Jonathan’s student, and Jonathan Fletcher Lynd: “You’re wasting your time with me, Jonathan! I’m too dumb!

I’m too stupid! I try and try, but I’ll never get it!”

เฟล็ตเชอร์ ลินด์: “ครูเสียเวลากับผมเปล่าๆ ครับ ผมมันเซ่อเกินไป โง่เกินไป ผมพยายามแล้วพยายามอีก แต่ผมคงไม่มีวันเรียนได้!”

In responding to several conversations created by Fletcher Lynd, Jonathan

always used the term “ฉัน”, a quite polite first-person singular pronoun which is

generally used when talking with a person of the same social status or a subordinate,

according to the Royal Institute Dictionary. The use of such first-person singular

pronoun in Thai can be noticed in the following example.

Interlocutors: Jonathan and Fletcher Lynd, his student


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Jonathan: “Oh, Fletch, come on. Think. If you are talking to me now, then

obviously you didn’t die, did you?

จอนะธัน: “โธ่! เฟล็ตช์! เอาอีกแล้ว รู้จักคิดเสียบ้างซี ก็เมื่อเธอยังพูดอยู่กับฉันแท้ๆ แล้วเธอจะตายได้อย่างไร ใช่ไหม?

Furthermore, Jonathan also used the occupation term “คร”ู as a first-

person singular pronoun in responding to this conversation to show his superordinate

status compared to Fletcher Lynd as can be seen in the following example provided

below.

Interlocutors: Jonathan and Fletcher Lynd, his student

Jonathan: “... the only Son of the Great Gull, I suppose?” Jonathan sighed

and looked out to sea. “You don’t need me any longer.

จอนะธัน: “...บุตรคนเดียวของนกนางนวลใหญ่กระมัง?” จอนะธันถอนหายใจใหญ่แล้วมองออกไปทางทะเล “เธอไม่จําเป็นต้องมีครูอีกต่อไปแล้ว

According to Palakornkul (1972: 34-35), personal names are also considered

second-personal singular pronouns. Interestingly, there are some examples found in

this translated version showing the strategy that the translator used to convey

meanings of second-person singular pronouns into Thai, which is the use of

occupation terms in replace of personal names as can be seen in the examples

excerpted below.

Interlocutors: Jonathan and Sullivan, one of Jonathan’s teachers Jonathan: “Sully, I must go back,” he said at last. “Your students are

doing well. They can help you bring the newcomers along.”

จอนะธัน: “ครูครับ ผมต้องกลับไป” เขาบอกกับซัลลิวันเป็นครั้งสุดท้าย “ลูกศิษย์ครูเรียนกันเก่งหมดแล้วเขาจะช่วยครูสอนนกที่มาใหม่ได้ต่อไป”

Interlocutors: Jonathan and Sullivan, one of Jonathan’s teachers Jonathan: “Sully, for shame!” Jonathan said in reproach, “and don’t be

foolish! What are we trying to practise every day?

จอนะธัน: “โธ่! ครูก็!” จอนะธันพ้อขึ้น “ครูอย่าพูดอย่างนั้นซีครับ! ทุกวันนี้เราพยายามฝึกอะไรกันอยู่?

8. “Omission” of the pronoun in the target text is another translation strategy that

the translator sometimes chose to make the conversation sounds concise and

natural to the target reader, as appearing the following example.

Interlocutors: Jonathan and Chiang, his teacher

Chiang: “You can go to any place and to any time that you wish to go,” the

Elder said. “I’ve gone everywhere and everywhen I can think of.”

เจียง: “ไปถึงได้ทุกแห่ง และทุกกาละที่เราต้องการจะไป” ผู้มีอาวุโสกล่าวตอบ “เราไปได้ถึงทุกแห่งและทุกหนที่เราสามารถจะนึกได้มาแล้ว”


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In responding to this conversation, the translator chose the term “ท่าน”

to show respect to Chiang, his teacher, as previously discussed in 4.2.

Summary and Recommendation

According to the research results presented above, there are 4 major

strategies the translator used in translating second person singular pronouns into Thai.

These strategies are in line with Holmes’ concept of language variation (2008: 235)

explaining that “Language can vary upon its specific uses, users, where it is used, and

to whom it is used. Therefore, different addressers’ relationships to the addressees are

responsible for determining various appropriate speaking styles.” as can be seen

below.

1. Use several Thai pronouns as the translation of “you” in English, depending

on the closeness of relationships between interlocutors. Common Thai

pronouns used by M.R. Kukrit Pramoch, the translator, can be listed below.

1.1 “เจ้า” , a common term that a superordinate which was generally

used in addressing a subordinate, was adopted. Here, the term was used as

a second person singular pronoun in two major different contexts:

1.1.1 It was used as a second-person singular pronoun by a

superordinate to politely address an affectionate subordinate.

1.1.2 It was used as an impolite or rude address term in the situation

where the speaker is not pleased with or has a sense of

discrimination against the listener. That is to say, this address

term has a close meaning to “มึง” mɯ̄ŋ but more polite to

some degree.

1.2 “เอ็ง” is another impolite term that the translator used in addressing

a second person who the addresser is not pleased with. However, it can

also be used by a superordinate to affectionately address a subordinate in

close relationships. It is obvious that the term is widely used among men

(father and son in this case) to show their maturity, truthfulness, strength,

virility, and a remarkably close relationship.

1.3 “ท่าน” is a very polite address term which has the meaning close

to “thou”. According to the Royal Institute Dictionary, this term was used

by the translator in the two following ways:

1.3.1 It was used as a neutral term to address a person when meeting

for the first time.

1.3.2 It was also used as an extremely polite address term when

meeting highly respectful superordinate, such as teachers and the

leader of the flock in this case.


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1.4 “ เ ธ อ” , the address term which is typically used among women,

was used by the translator to address an affectionate subordinate, regardless

of gender.

1.5 “เรา” , which can be either used as a first-person singular or plural

pronoun, was used by the translator to address a person of the same social

status: age, social class, educational background, etc. However, this the term

was also used as a second-person singular pronoun for an authorized or

powerful person to address a subordinate under his or her control, a teacher

and a student in this particular case. 2. Use Thai kin terms in replace of the denotative meaning of “you” in English,

depending on the status of the listener in the family. The only kin term found in

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was “ ลู ก ” , which has the denotative

meaning as “a child” in Thai. Actually, this term can either be used by parents

as a second-person singular pronoun to affectionately address their children or

by other people in affectionately addressing a child, though he or she has no

direct relationship with the addresser.

3. Use occupation terms in replace of the denotative meaning of “you” in English.

The occupation term found in this particular research was “ค รู ” , which has the denotative meaning as “teacher” in English. It was adopted to

show the relationship between a superordinate and a subordinate, Jonathan and

his teachers as well as Jonathan and his students in several situations.

4. Use the strategy called “omission” as a mean of translation in some contexts.

This may stem from the fact that the use of several pronouns in a sentence may

result in unnatural language in the target language. Besides, such method can

also bring about the target text that is concise and communicative to the reader.

According to Holmes’ concept of language variation (2008: 236), there

are many factors which determine the degree of social distance and solidarity between

people. They influence the addressees to consider selecting the style of language that

reflects their specific characteristics: age, gender, etc., relationships between him or her

and the addresser, and the situations in which the conversations took place. This

requires the consideration of several social factors that result in variants appropriate or

each particular speaker. The first-person singular pronouns in Thai, which vary upon

social factors, found in Jonathan Livingston Seagull include the following:

1. “ผม” was selected as the first-person singular pronoun when speaking to a

superordinate, the leader of the flock, in a quite formal setting. Therefore,

Jonathan had to speak politely and use high-standard forms of language.

2. “ท่ า น ” was used to show as polite tone and register as that used by

Jonathan. As a real, this normally happens when people meet for the first time,

regardless of gender.


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3. “เธอ” was used as a second-person pronoun by the translator to show

that the speaker is superordinate to the addressee, a student in this case.

4. “ฉั น ” , a quite polite first-person singular pronoun, was generally used when

talking with a person of the same social status or a subordinate, according to the

Royal Institute Dictionary.

5. “ครู” , an occupation term, was used by the translator as a first-

person singular pronoun to show the addresser’s superordinate status

compared to the addressee.

This particular research study is conducted on the basis of M.R. Kukrit

Pramoch’s literary style of writing. Thus, the strategies found in the Thai version of

Jonathan Livingston Seagull cannot represent all the strategies used in translating this

kind of text. However, the researcher really hopes that this particular research study

can benefit the readers or researchers who are interested in linguistic variation caused

by social factors and their effects on the way people speak differently in a variety of

situations. On top of that, such knowledge and findings gained form this particular

research can also be extended to the study of other language units and components

which can vary upon social factors such as third-person singular or plural pronouns,

lexical items, final particles, etc.

References

Bach, Richard. (2003). Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Third Edition. Great Britain:

Martins The Printers Ltd.

Holmes, Janet. (2008). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Third Edition. Malaysia:

Pearson Education Limited.

Jahanshahi, Maryam and Kafipour, Reza. (2015). Error Analysis of English

Translation of Islamic Texts by Iranian Translators, Paper published in

Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research. Volume 2, Issue 3,

2015, pp. 238-252.

Larson, Mildred L. (1984). Meaning-based Translation: A Guide to Cross-

Language Equivalence. New York : University Press of America.

Office of the Royal Society. (1999). The Royal Institute Dictionary B.E. 2542.

Bangkok: Aksorn Charoen Tat.

Palkornkul, Angkab. (1972). A Sociolinguistics Study of Pronominal Strategy in

Spoken Bangkok Thai. Ph.D. Thesis. (Linguistics). University of Texas.

Pramoch, Kukrit, M.R. (2001). จอนะธัน ลิวิงสตัน นางนวล. Bangkok: Dokya Publishing

House.

Prasithrathsint, Amara. (1998). Sociolinguistics. Second Edition. Bangkok:

Chulalongkorn University Press.

Saeng-aramruang, Wanna. (1999). Theory and Practice of Translation. Bangkok:

Chulalongkorn University Press.

Sipachai, Alif. (2016). Archaized Thai Stories: Traditional Thai Pronouns.

Retrieved from http://siamesestories.blogspot.com/2014/01/blog-post.html

Srinarawat, Deeyoo. (2008). Language and Society. Bangkok: Linguistics

Department, Thammasat University.


THE STUDY OF PERSONAL PRONOUN FORMS USED IN WOMEN’S

TALK IN ALL-FEMALE GROUPS

Praneerat Panpraneet1

1 English Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,


[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to study personal pronoun form used in

women’s talk in all-female groups. Ten conversations were collected by using a

recorder. Three out of ten conversations recorded were collected by sample random

sampling. Each conversation consists of at least three participants who are intimate and

familiar. The result found that women use a large variety of personal pronoun within

same-sex conversation. The overall result shows that the personal pronoun of the third

person are most frequently used at the rate of 54.64 percent, followed by the personal

pronoun of the first person and the second person at the rate of 33.63 and 11.73 percent,

respectively. The most frequent form of the first personal pronoun used in the

conversation is kinship term at the rate of 71.86 percent, followed by the form raw at

the rate of 9.90 percent. The form nickname and kuu is followed at the rate of 12

percent equally. In addition, the most frequent form of the second personal pronoun is

the kinship term + nickname at the rate of 77.61 percent, followed by the form m

and nickname at the rate of 8 and 7 percent, respectively. The most frequent form of

the third personal pronoun is the form kaw at the rate of 26.60 percent, followed

by the nickname at the rate of 25.96 percent. The form is used at the rate of

14.42 percent. The findings reflect that the participants realize the relationships between

the speaker and listener. It shows that Thai people recognize the social factors,

especially seniority. In addition, a large variety of the third personal pronouns

represents women’s talk in all-female groups that emphasizes the solidarity and

friendship which lead to intimacy among the groups.

Keywords: personal pronoun, women’s talk

Introduction

In everyday conversation, it cannot deny that Thais do not use personal

pronoun referring to someone. Panupong (1995) defined the personal pronouns that

there are three pronouns; the first person, the second person and the third person. The

first person indicates speaker. The second person indicates addressee or listener

whereas the third person indicates someone that we talk about.

There are many previous studies of personal pronoun. The previous studies

focus on historical linguistics of Thai personal pronoun, for example, Sangsod (1988)

studied the usage of personal pronoun since the Sukhothai period. It found that there is

a change of personal pronoun usage in each period. Giaphong (2007) studied the system

of personal pronoun in the traditional Thai literature. It found that the personal pronouns

tend to be similar to Sukhothai period’s spoken language.


24

In addition, there are some studies focused on personal pronoun in different

dialects. Jiapong (2010) studied personal pronouns in four Thai dialects; Central,

Sounthern, Northern and North-Eastern. The result showed that there are the largest

number of personal pronouns in Central Thai dialect.

Rhekhalilit (2014) studied the system of personal pronoun in Tai Lue spoken

in three countries, such as Thailand, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the

People’s Republic of China. The result showed that personal pronouns vary on not only

three grammatical meanings; person, gender and number, but also four social meanings;

age, gender, status and intimacy between participants.

Moreover, the study by Chanaphiban (2011) focused on the usage of forms

address terms used with unfamiliar addressees. The results show that there are two

structures used; one-unit structure and two-unit structure. The one-unit structure

contains kinship terms, name, foreign loan word, pronoun and positional term while the

two-unit structure contains kinship term + name and pronoun + name.

From the studies mentioned above, there is no study about the personal

pronoun forms, especially of familiar participants. Therefore, in this study the

researcher would like to study the forms of personal pronoun used in women’s talk in

same-sex conversations.

Research Objectives

The objective of the research is to study personal pronoun form used in

women’s talk in same-sex conversations.

Methodology

The methodology of this research is divided into three topics; sample group

as in 3.1, data collecting as in 3.2 and data analysis as in 3.3, as following.

3.1 Sample group

The sample groups are collected by using following criteria.

3.1.1 They are all female.

3.1.2 They are 20-30 years old.

3.1.3 They are intimate and familiar.

3.1.4 They study in the same university.

These criteria are considered because they should have the same background

knowledge and feel comfortable to make a conversation.

3.2 Data collecting

The data were collected during lunch time by using a recorder. Three out of

ten conversations recorded were collected by sample random sampling. There are

various length in each conversation. The first conversation is a conversation about a

participant’s boyfriend. It lasts about 24 minutes and consists of three participants. The

second conversation is about the drama. It lasts about eight minutes and consists of

eight participants. The last conversation is about the celebrities from the entertainment

group. It lasts six minutes and consists of three participants. Total length of the

conversation is about 38 minutes. After the data collecting, all data are transcribed into

Thai alphabets by using the system of Jefferson (2004).

3.3 Data Analysis


25

The data of personal pronoun forms were analyzed and also showed the

frequency and the percentage of occurring as presented in the tables.

Research Results

The results found that within same-sex conversation, women use personal

pronoun variously. In this part, there are four topics mentioned as in 4.1 overall results

of the personal pronoun form used in the conversation, 4.2 the result of the first personal

pronoun form used in the conversation, 4.3 the result of the second personal pronoun

form used in the conversation and 4.4 the result of the third personal pronoun form used

in the conversation as follows.

4.1 Overall results of the personal pronoun form used in the conversation The overall result of the personal pronoun form used in the conversation and

its frequency and percentage of occurring are shown in table 1.

Table 1: The overall result of the personal pronoun form

Types of Personal Pronoun frequency percent

1st person 192 33.63

2nd person 67 11.73

3rd person 312 54.64

Total 571 100

Table 1 shows the overall result of the personal pronoun used in conversations

of all female groups. The personal pronoun of the third person are most frequently used

at the rate of 54.64 percent, followed by the personal pronoun of the first person and

the second person at the rate of 33.63 and 11.73 percent, respectively.

4.2 The result of the first personal pronoun form used in the conversation

The result of the first personal pronoun form used in the conversation and its

frequency and percentage of occurring are shown in table 2.

Table 2: The result of the first personal pronoun form

Types of Personal

Pronoun Personal Pronoun Form frequency percent

1st person

kinship term 138 71.86

nickname 12 6.25

kinship term + nickname 2 1.04

kaw 2 1.04

raw 19 9.90

kuu 12 6.25

an 2 1.04

nuu 5 2.60

Total 192 100


26

Table 2 shows that there are several personal pronouns to refer to the speaker

or the addresser. The most frequent form used in the conversation is kinship term at the

rate of 71.86 percent, followed by the form raw at the rate of 9.90 percent. The form

nickname and kuu is followed at the rate of 12 percent equally.

Here is the example of the first personal pronoun form in conversation.

Example 1

(187) A : tii p m pii

pii

pii pii

pii

pii pii =

Actually, my parents never asked me until I said, for example, a case of

making merit. Yesterday it was a making merit ceremony in my house.

I donated for 2,000 baht but her boyfriend gave her 1,000 baht so it made

her angry and she scolded him.

(188) C :

Umm.

(189) A : =

=

It is because when making merit, do not be stingy. As I said, I did not

have much chance to do.

(190) C : ::

Umm.

(191) A : = pi pi

pi

=

It is that I do not have much chance to make merit for my religion.

(192) C : ::

Umm.

This example conversation shows the talk about A’s donation. The speaker

A seems to use the kinship term by using the word ‘pii’ to express her relationship

between the speaker and listeners and also show her status and seniority that she is older

than listeners.

4.3 The result of the second personal pronoun form used in the conversation

The result of the second personal pronoun form used in the conversation

and its frequency and percentage of occurring are shown in table 3.


27

Table 3: The result of the second personal pronoun form

Types of Personal


2nd person


m 8 11.94

nickname 7 10.46

Total 67 100

Table 3 represents the second personal pronoun used in the conversation to

refer to the listener or addressee. There are three forms used in the conversation. The

most frequent form is the kinship term + nickname at the rate of 77.61 percent, followed

by the form m and nickname at the rate of 8 and 7 percent, respectively.

Here is the example of the second personal pronoun form in conversation.

Example 2

(125) A : man

=

It’s o.k. to save money. It’s stingy.

(126) C : [man

It’s stingy

(127) B : [

too stingy

(128) C : = pi ni

Umm. Actually he should give some money for you.

(129) B : pi ni

=

This is not a good point, sis. Too stingy is not good.

(130) C : =

Yes.

This example conversation is about A’s boyfriend habit. In this conversation,

the speakers B and C use the form kinship term + nickname as in phii ni. Both of

the speakers B and C recognized that they are younger than A and also realize that they

should respect someone older. Therefore, they express to A by using kinship term +

nickname.

4.4 The result of the third personal pronoun form used in the conversation

The result of the third personal pronoun form used in the conversation and

its frequency and percentage of occurring as in table 4.


28

Table 4: The result of the third personal pronoun form

Types of Personal


3rd person

nickname 81 25.96

kinship term 42 13.46


45 14.42

kaw 83 26.60

k 4 1.28

8 2.56

6 1.92

man 4 1.28

she 24 7.69

Total 312 100

Table 4 shows that there are various personal pronouns to refer to the third

person who is absent in the conversation. The form kaw is the most frequent at the

rate of 26.60 percent, followed by the nickname at the rate of 25.96 percent. The form

is used at the rate of 14.42 percent.

Here is the example of the third personal pronoun form in conversation.

Example 3

(79) A : = pi

pi

=

It was like I never donated. I felt like can we trust him?

(80) B :

Umm

(81) A : =

=

I gave money to him but we did not know that he would buy or not.

(82) B : ::

Umm

(83) A : =

However, we had made merit so we did not know. It was with him.

The conversation is about the friend’s donating money. This conversation is

from the third conversation. It shows the usage of the form kaw to refer to the third

person who is absent from the conversation.


This study aims to compare personal pronoun form used in all female groups’

conversations. Three out of ten conversations were collected and transcribe into


29

alphabets. The results found that women use personal pronoun variously within same-

sex conversation.

For the first personal pronoun, there are several personal pronouns to refer to

the speaker. The most frequent form used in the conversation is kinship term at the rate

of 71.86 percent, followed by the form raw at the rate of 9.90 percent. The form

nickname and kuu is followed at the rate of 12 percent equally. In addition, the

second personal pronoun used in the conversation to refer to the listener. The most

frequent form is the kinship term + nickname at the rate of 77.61 percent, followed by

the form m and nickname at the rate of 8 and 7 percent, respectively.

In this case, using the kinship term seems quite common in Thailand. The

kinship term reveals the relationships between the speaker and listener. It indicates that

in Thai society Thai people recognize the social factors especially seniority. They

respect someone older and know how to speak to senior people. It is said that seniority

is a part of Thai society. This supports the studies of Agha (2007), Brown & Gilman

(1960), Siewierska (2004) and Rhekhalilit (2014) that the usage of personal pronoun

requires the social relations between participants. However, the result of Chanaphiban

(2011) shows that the participants used kinship term + name and also the usage of

address terms with unfamiliar addressees depends on social factors of addressees and

those of speakers. This research reveals that the usage of kinship term is not only for

the unfamiliar addressees but also the familiar addressees.

For the third personal pronoun, the form kaw is the most frequent at the

rate of 26.60 percent, followed by the nickname at the rate of 25.96 percent. The form

is used at the rate of 14.42 percent. Moreover, the overview of this research

result shows that the personal pronoun of the third person are most frequently used at

the rate of 54.64 percent. The findings of the third personal pronoun are most frequently

used in the all-female groups reflect that women tend to talk about their life or gossip

about someone who is absent. In this case, sharing their life or storytelling plays an

important role to the society. Nicholson (2001) indicated that the function of gossip is

to help the participant intimate. Sharing their lives or some secrets leads to the

trustworthiness among the groups. Moreover, Tannen (1990) indicated that talking

about their life creates the solidarity between participants. Women seem to make friends

by sharing their lives to their friends. The women’s talk in all-female groups

emphasizes the promotion of solidarity and friendship that leads to intimacy among the

groups.

In this research, the results provide many advantages for understanding

language which is affected by social factors such as seniority and gender. Moreover, it

is helpful for understand culture of women, especially Thai women, who realize that

the values of solidarity and friendship are very important. Therefore, this research will

be useful for teaching Sociolinguistics or cultural study.

For further research, the researcher suggest that it should investigate the

personal pronoun used in all-male groups and compare to those of all-female groups.

Moreover, it is a good idea to investigate different social factors that have an effect

upon the conversation.


30

References

Agha, A. (2007). Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Brown, R. & Gilman, A. M. (1960). The Pronoun of Power and Solidarity. In T. A.

Sebeok (Ed.) Style in Language. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.

Chanaphiban, N. (2011). Usage of Terms of Address with Unfamiliar Addressees.

Master’s Project, M.Ed. (Educational Linguistics). Bangkok: Graduate

School Srinakharinwirot University.

Giaphong, S. (2007). Personal Pronoun in Lilit Phra Lor: A Sociolinguistic study.

Asornrasart Journal. 29, 73-91.

Jiapong, S. (2010). A Comparative Study of Personal Pronouns in the Four Thai

Dialects. (Doctoral Dissertation). Silpakorn University.

Nicholson, N. (2001). The Ne Word on Gossip. Retrieved from

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200105/the-new-word-gossip

Panupong, V. (1995). Structure of Thai: Grammatical System. Bangkok:

Ramkhamhaeng Uiversity Press.

Rhekhalilit, K. (2014). On-going Change of the Personal Pronoun System in

Tau=I Lue Spoken in Thailand, the Lao people’s Democratic Republic

and the People’s Republic of China. (Doctoral Dissertation).

Chulalongkorn University.

Sangsod, W. (1988). Personal Pronouns in Thai: A Historical Study. (M.A.

Thesis). Chulalongkorn University.

Siewierska, A. (2004). Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tannen, D. (1990). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in

Conversation. New York: Ballantine Books

Appendix The system of transcription

:: To prolong the sound

= Simultaneous speech

[ Interrupt


GENRE ANALYSIS OF ONLINE BIOGRAPHY

Kamonlaporn Sirisophon1 Rungarun Wanithanachakorn

2 John Foose3

and Michael Hellauer4

1 English Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Valaya Alongkorn Rajabhat University

under the Royal Patronage

[email protected] 2 English Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Valaya Alongkorn Rajabhat University






[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This study aims to analyze the structure, the article length and cohesion of

online biography. By searching the word biography on Google, the researchers

randomly selected biographies of five famous people. The methodology was done

under the genre analysis approach. It was found that the discourse structure of online

biography consist of at least two parts: career and famous work. There are also more

parts of childhood, former work, and turning point of success. The mean of words per

one online biography is 280.2 words. The additive conjunction is the cohesive device

which is used most frequent in online biography.

Keywords: biography, genre analysis, cohesion, reference

Introduction

A biography is simply a written account telling a story of life. The term

biography connotes an artful genre that contains a wide range of sources, strategies and

insights. It deals with the intimate, inconsistent textures of personality and experience.

A biography is mostly viewed as an art rather than as a science. Stauffer (1970) gave

the reason that individual pieces are to be judged according to their success in

conveying the sense of a life being lived, rather than according to the quantity or the

accuracy of the facts they contain.

Schwarz (1990) gave reason that curiosity, the human nature, may be the

reason why biographies happened. For thousands of years, humans have been interested

in both sharing the stories of their own lives and reading about the lives of others. Over

the centuries people have become more literate. Instead of drawing, biographies were

written for many of the records relating to both government and religious leaders.

Nowadays the biography has become the most popular source of non-fiction reading.

Several types of biographies are available. Writing about an individual who is

currently alive, is classified as either an authorized or an unauthorized biographies. An

authorized biography has the subject’s cooperation. He or she will grant one or more

interviews. The unauthorized biographies may or may not be written with the aid of

interview from the subject. This type of biography might be considered to be more

accurate than unauthorized biographies because there is no interference on the part of


32

those biased in the subject’s favor. On the other hand, they are probably inaccurate as

the subject refuses to be interviewed and the people who could give a balance story are

unwilling to speak.

Not only that, there are the “literary” biographies and the biographies of

individuals long dead. The former may involve going through the writing of the subject

and those with whom he or she interacted. The latter can be called historical

biographies. Needed information can be researched in any way possible, such as

newspapers.

There are many ways to select a subject for a biography. A good biography

presents the facts about the person’s life, including what the subject did and how they

influenced their world. It should describe the person’s personality and provide an

explanation for why he or she acted in certain ways. Most biographies are interpretive:

they do not only present the facts, but also clarify what those facts mean. Biographers

make their writings accurate by learning as much as possible about their subjects. They

study materials such as diaries, personal letters, and autobiographies. A good biography

should be objective and balanced, but those lofty goals are not always achieved. Some

biographers present a biased view by selectively presenting only the facts that portray

the subject in either a favorable or sometimes an unflattering way.

Biography is defined as a literary genre. Biography is crucial. The biography

is clearer to reveal great artists or scientists through biography than the original work

of them. It is a created history and determined by the culture of the moment.

Biographies reveal the ways in which an individual in the past faced obstacles, brought

about social change, questioned existing boundaries and endured through times.

The term genre is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory and

linguistics. Genre analysis examines fundamental questions about how our lives are

ordered. Chandler (2000) categorized it as one kind of discourse analysis. Discourse

analysis study the organization of language above sentences and clauses. Swales (1990)

explained that in the field of English for Specific Purpose, genre is a type of

communicative event and regulated by shared purposes among members.

Sheehan (1987) defined as the pattern of organization and the arrangement of

interrelated part with in the text. A type of structure generate ideas and hierarchical

concepts. The macrostructure of articles are interested by many researchers.

Discourse structure is a basis of how units in the text precede and follow.

Discourse such as written text can be broke into parts. Studying discourse structure is

useful to explain what happens in text; moreover, it helps to explain what parts are

tentatively to be and how they tend to be arranged.

Some texts seem to be more interesting than others because they cohere better.

This means the word, phrases and sentences fit the idea better. Holliday and Hasan

(1976) studied cohesion as a unity-creative device in texts. Cohesion is classified by

Holliday and Hasan (1976) into five major categories. They are reference cohesion,

substitution, ellipsis, conjunctive cohesion and lexical cohesion.

Reference cohesion is a semantic relation in which the information to be

retrieved is the referential meaning. The identity of the particular thing that is being

referred to. Substitution is one of the cohesion which achieved by the replacement of

one item by another. Ellipsis is cohesion which is the omission of the item. Whereby,

lexical cohesion is established through the structure of vocabulary. They are two types,

reiteration and collection. Reiteration is the repetition of the lexical item by using


33

synonym. Colocation cohesive words share the same lexical environment. They appear

in similar context.

Research Objectives

The purpose of the study is to analyze the genre of Biography Webpages on

official websites of famous people in three aspects:

1. The discourse structure of biography webpage.

2. The article length.

3. The cohesion.

Methodology

1. The setting is the written text of biography from www.google.com. By

typing the word biography, the researchers randomly selected five

biographies from search results. The contents were retrieved during

August 2016-October 2016.

2. Data collection is as follow.

a. Randomly select five biographies from Google search engine.

b. Serve through the webpages then print out the biography articles.

The biographies which are collected are as follow.

Aaron Swartz whose biography webpage is

http://www.aaronsw.com/

David Quay whose biography webpage is

http://davidquaydesign.com/category/biography/

Aubrey Drake whose biography webpage is

http://www.drakeofficial.com/biography

Garth Turner whose biography webpage is

http://www.garthturner.ca/

Taylor Swift whose biography is

http://taylorswift.com/about

Research Results

The structure of online biography from the collected data is varied. The

moves and steps are different. The data is shown below.

http://www.google.com/


34

Table 1 Structure of online biography

Aaron

Swartz

Garth

Turner

Taylor

Swift

David Quay Aubrey Drake

Jobs or careers Jobs or careers Born Short

biography

Famous work

and career

Famous work Famous work Famous

work and

career

Study Born and

Childhood

Other

Achievement

Previous jobs Turning point

of success

Turning points

of success

Charity work

Famous work Recent work

and success

Table 1 provides macro structure of online biography of famous people in

various filed. Biographies were composed of at least two parts which were found in

Aaron Swartz, and Garth Turner biography .They are jobs and career and famous work.

The other three biographies are composed of three to five parts. The moves and

sequence of each biography are different. In David Quay’s biography, it is an only one

which its sequence is in order chronologically. It started from studying until the recent

success. Biography of Aubrey Drake is an only one which consists of childhood

information.

Article length

It was found that article length varies from 224 to 548 words while the mean

of total words is 382.8 words. Mean of total sentences of one online biography is 18

and the mean of total paragraphs is 8.6 paragraphs. Mean of words per one sentence is

also calculated at 21.08 words per sentence. A paragraph contains an average of 47.51

words. Lastly by mean, there are 2.206 sentences per paragraph. Table 2 presents details

of the length of online biography.

Table 2 Quantitative analysis of online biography components

Aaron

Swartz

David

Quay

Aubrey

Drake

Garth

Turner

Taylor

Swift

Mean

Total

words

224 452 399 291 548 382.8

Total

sentences

12 22 17 19 20 18

Total

paragraphs

5 11 6 12 9 8.6

Mean of

words per

sentence

18.66 20.55 23.47 15.32 27.4 21.08


35

Aaron

Swartz

David

Quay

Aubrey

Drake

Garth

Turner

Taylor

Swift

Mean

Mean of

word per

paragraph

44.8 41.09 66.5 24.25 60.89 47.506

Mean

sentence

per

paragraph

2.4 2 2.83 1.58 2.22 2.206

Cohesion

The researchers are interested in cohesion of the main parts and within the

same part. So the study aims at finding the type of cohesion which is frequently used

among the typical main sequence. The analysis focuses on the type of cohesive ties of

the main parts from the first sequence to the second sequence, the second sequence to

the third and so on.

In biography of each person, there are details in cohesion which are

significant. The main cohesive ties or cohesion are subdivided. There are three cues

found in reference which is a type of cohesion. The cues which are found are third

person pronominal, demonstrative and comparative. The third person pronomials in

the study are he, she, him, her, his, it and their. The pronomial their is found only two

times in all five biography whereas theirs is not occurred. Table 3 shows frequency of

cues to cohesion used in each biography. From Table 3, means of pronoun used per

total words are very low. This implies that third person pronomials are seldom used as

cohesion.

Table 3 Frequency of third person pronomials as cohesive ties in online

biography

Reference Aaron

Swartz

David

Quay

Aubrey

Drake

Garth

Turner

Taylor

Swift

Third

person

pronomials

She 0 0 0 0 19

He 17 15 4 2 0

Him 0 0 0 0 0

his 2 3 12 1 0

it 0 1 4 0 7

her 0 0 0 0 8

hers 0 0 0 0 0

their 0 0 0 1 1

its 0 1 0 0 0

Mean per

total words

0.085 0.044 0.050 0.014 0.0639


36

The demonstratives which are used to cohere the main parts are found as

follow. There are 4 demonstratives found. They are this, these, that, and those.

Comparing to the third person pronomials, demonstratives used as cohesion marker are

rarely used. Table 4 shows the frequency of them.

Table 4 Frequency of demonstratives as cohesive ties in online biography

Reference Aaron

Swartz

David

Quay

Aubrey

Drake

Garth

Turner

Taylor

Swift

Demonstratives

this 0 0 1 3 1

these 1 0 0 0 0

those 0 1 0 0 0

that 0 0 0 0 2

Conjunction is the cohesion marker which is used mostly in the online

biography, especially additive conjunction like and. The word and is found seventy

nine times totally from five biography. Table 5 provides frequency of collected

conjunction.

Table 5 Frequency of conjunction as cohesive ties from five online biographies.

Conjunction Frequency of conjunction

from five biography

Additive

conjunction

And 79

Adversative

conjunction

But 7

Yet 2

Temporal

conjunction

Then 1

Next 3

First 1


The structure of five online biographies is not written exactly similar.

However, there are typical moves and steps. All of biography contains jobs/career and

famous work or achievement. Some of them provide information about childhood. The

article length is only 382.8 on average which is quite short for the traditional biography

structure.


37

The results shows that additive conjunction is the cohesive tie which is used

the most often among the text. The third person pronomials are surprisingly rarely used

in online biography. The substation cohesion and ellipsis cohesion are not used in these

online biographies.

Since only five online biographies are analyzed in this study, further studies

should be done by collecting more data to make more consistency and supportive

results.

References

Chandler, D. (2000). The problem of definition. Introduction to Genre Theory.

Holliday, M. A. K., & Ruqaiya Hassan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London:

Longrnan.

Schwarz, T. (1990). The complete guide to writing biographies. Writers Digest

Books.

Sheehan, A. M. H. (1987). Structure and cohesion in informative writing by

college freshmen (Doctoral dissertation, Univ. Mircofilms International).

Stauffer, R. G. (1970). The Language-Experience Approach to the Teaching of

Reading. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.

Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. New

York: Cambridge University Press.


THE CO-OCCURRENCE, SEMANTIC AND CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF

MOOD

Rungarun Wanithanachakorn1 Kamonlaporn Sirisophon

2 Daniel Guay3

and Donald Randolph4

1 English Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Valaya Alongkorn

Rajabhat University under the Royal Patronage

[email protected] 2 English Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Valaya Alongkorn





Rajabhat University Under the Royal Patronage

[email protected]

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to analyze the co-occurrence behavior and

semantic and contextual analysis of the word mood. The study was conducted by

analyzing co-occurrence, semantic and context which mood was used in sentences. The

data was collected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English.The results

revealed eight syntactic patterns of mood from the limited data. The word mood in each

pattern occurs with verbs, adjectives and nouns which contain specific semantic

identities. Verbs collocating with mood hold common feature in the sense of ‘change’

or ‘cause to be happen/change’. Adjectives were categorized into five groups:

adjectives about groups of people, feelings, and fields of studies, polarity adjectives,

and others. Noun phrases found in the pattern are abstract and some are referred to food

or beverages. There were seven contexts which mood occurred. It can be implied from

the structure, semantic and contextual analysis that mood was dynamic and abstract. It

is also resemblance with emotional feelings, attitude or opinion which is not only for

expressions of individual but groups of people. Moreover, mood, as co-occurred with

both words connoted positive or negative meanings.

Keywords: mood, co-occurrence, semantic analysis, contextual analysis

Introduction

Using the word mood is very confusing, especially for the non-native

speakers. For non-native speakers, such as Thais, there are some doubts of what context

should mood be used and what the co-occurrence pattern of mood. This is because in

Thai language, we have an only one word อารมณ์ /aro:m/ which can be meant as emotion,

mood or affection. For example, it is confusing to translate the sentence เขาอารมณ์ดี into

English as it is possible be in (1) or (2).

(1) He is happy.

(2) He is in a good mood.


39

A corpus is now a primary resource to investigate common pattern in language

use. Although, the meanings and examples which are in the dictionary guides in how

to use the word mood in sentences, it does not provide enough contexts and usages.

In this study, corpus is used as a resource to find out the co-occurrence or most

frequent combinations of words as be known as collocation. Collocation is classified in

the field of lexico-grammar which is about descriptions of how vocabulary and

grammar are interrelated. According to Firth (1968: 181), ‘collocations of a given word

are statements of the habitual or customary places of that word’.

In noun co-occurrence study, members of the same semantic category are

expected to be co-occured in the same context. Roark and Charniak (1998) explained

that there are four noun constructions which nouns in the same construction are

expected to be in the same semantic class. The four constructions are followed. The

pattern of noun phrase with conjunction as in [noun + conjunction + noun], a noun

phrase as a list as in [noun, noun, and noun], appositives construction such as the plane,

a twin-engine Cessna and noun compounds such as pickup truck.

Moreover, position of word in sentence indicates semantic relation. Lancia,

(2007) stated that two or more words are likely to occur in similar linguistic contexts

tend to be positioned closer.

Knowing how to use the word mood in sentences or context would improve

fluency in English using for Thais. Moreover, it is hoped to be useful in the Thai–

English and English Thai translation.

Research Objectives

1. To analyze the co-occurrence behavior of the word mood.

2. To do the semantic and contextual analysis of the word mood.

Methodology

The methodology in this study is as follows.

1. Collect the one hundred co-occurrence data of mood from Corpus of

Contemporary American English.

2. Study syntactic phrases of mood from the collected data with the

frequency.

3. Classify phrases into groups then study the verbs, adjectives and noun

phrases with is commonly used with mood.

4. Analyze semantic and contextual properties of mood from the co-

occurrences.

Research Results

The co-occurrence patterns

The co-occurrence patterns of mood from the one hundred sentences

collected from the corpus are classified in to eight patterns. They are shown below in

Table 1 with the frequency. In these eight patterns, four of them are noun phrases, three

of them are preposition phrases and another pattern is verb phrase.


40

Table 1 The co-occurrence patterns of mood

Pattern of mood Frequency

1. [Determiner + mood] 13

2. [Determiner + adjective +

mood]

26

3. [Possessive adjective + mood

and NP’s + mood]

17

4. [in the mood +to infinitive] 22

5. [in the mood of + noun

phrase]

10

6. [in the mood for + noun

phrase]

5

7. [verb to be+ no mood +to

infinitive]

4

8. [Determiner + mood + noun

phrase]

3

1. Pattern of [Determiner + mood]

The pattern of [a/the + mood] was both precedes and follows verb. As been

shown in an examples of (3) and (4).

(3) This mood changed somewhat after Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's visit

to China in 1976.

(4) In a mood like this, the only blog she can read is called Emily

Dickinson's Stilettos.

2. Pattern of [Determiner + adjective + mood]

In one hundred sentences collected, there are twenty six sentences which

mood is modified by adjectives. The adjectives which are placed before mood are

presented in the table below.


41

Table 2 Adjectives which are collocated with mood

Adjectives Frequency of

occurrence

1. bad 2

2. casual 1

3. delightful 1

4. depressed 1

5. depressive 1

6. desperate 1

7. fighting 1

8. good 1

9. herbal 1

10. ideological 1

11. introperspective 1

12. melodramatic 1

13. national 3

14. negative 1

15. ongoing 1

16. political 1

17. positive 1

18. prevailing 1

19. public 1

20. rare 1

21. ridiculous 1

22. sour 1


42

Adjectives Frequency of

occurrence

23. surly 1

24. general 1

25. touchy 1

26. mod 1

3. Pattern of [possessive adjective + mood ]and [NP’s + mood]

Possessive adjectives which occur with the word mood are my, his, her,

your and their. Moreover, it was found that a possession form with apostrophe s (‘s) is

used. An example is shown in (5)-(7).

(5) The family's mood.

(6) the crowd’s mood

(7) people’s mood

4. Pattern of [in the mood +to infinitive]

The pattern in the mood +to infinitive was found four out of one hundred

sentences. They are shown in (8) and (9). The pattern implies the future events or the

feeling of planning to do something.

(8) Besides, my divorce had just become final, and I was in the mood to do

some celebrating.

(9) She was in the mood to pay one more visit to the Lady and the Unicorn.

5. Pattern of [in/by the mood of + noun phrase]

The pattern in/by the mood of + noun phrase was found ten out of one

hundred. Noun phrases which are in the pattern can be categorized into two groups.

The first one is the noun phrase referring to a group of people. The second one is noun

phrases which denote abstract entities. They are shown as in (10) – (11)

(10) To make us suffer humankind's misery is sweet because this is

a mood of brotherhood, of compassion, and of realism, of embracing the world.

(11) The one who, tempted by the mood of the buccaneer and the drifter.

6. Pattern of [in the mood for + NP]

The pattern [in the mood for + NP] is used in the meaning of ‘want to have,

consume something or to do something’. As in (12) – (13). From the collected data,

noun phrase which is refered to food or drinks were mostly used.

(12) If you're in the mood for a cocktail, feel free - but have only one

alcoholic beverage before switching.


43

(13) I'm suddenly in the mood for some mustard.

(14) The country is in the mood for political reform, not an Egyptian-style

revolution.

7. The pattern [verb to be no mood + to infinitive]

This pattern is implied as ‘do not want to do something’. This is an only one

pattern which is negative. An example of the collocation is in (15).

(15) I'm in no mood to watch a cat fight tonight.

8. The pattern [Determiner + mood + noun phrase]

The pattern [Determiner + mood + noun phrase] is an only one pattern

which mood is used as noun modifier. It is compound noun. The example is the mood

problems or mood disorder.

Words which are used with mood

In this part, the verbs, nouns and adjectives which stand with mood are

reported. Those types of words which place in the same sentence of mood are all

collected then were classified into groups. The main collocations are verbs, adjectives

and nouns which are explained below.

1. Verbs or verb phrases

This study is focused on verbs or verb phrases which occur in the same phrase

structure with mood. To be clearer, verbs which need mood as an argument were

collected. As in (16)-(17), the verb felt and want were not included in the data because

mood was not their argument.

(16) I felt responsible for my students' mood.

(17) I didn't want them leaving that classroom under a cloud of Sylvia Plath.

The verbs which are after the mood or need the mood as the nominative case are

change, turn, swing, suit, strike and last.

The verbs which were placed before mood need mood as direct or indirect

object. All verbs are shown below.


44

Table 3 Verbs which co-occurred with mood and their examples

Verbs Examples

Affect (18) I did, because actually color really

does affect mood.

Change (19) He changes mood suddenly and

comes across as quite unpredictable.

Describe (20) Alabama center Ryan Kelly

admitted as much as he described the

Crimson Tide's mood.

Determine (21) Most of it was dictated, determined

(as he tells us) his mood on any

particular day.

Dictate (22) Most of it was dictated, determined

(as he tells us) his mood on any

particular day.

Elevate (23) His mood was no longer elevated.

Evoke (24) and its meticulous use of physical

description to evoke the mood.

Gauge (25) Jamie had crossed the river to

gauge the mood within the City of

London

Improve (26) Several factors had contributed to

the improving mood.

keep____light (27) Kept the mood light and hopeful.

Kill (28) He'll joke around or even make fun

of me and totally kill the mood.

Lighten (29) Ron Shuster lightened

the mood with a joke about death.

Modulate (30) Translucent wall panels wilt block

UV rays and modulate mood.

Recall (31) Buck recalls the mood as

somewhere between disheartening and

catastrophic.

Set (32) Nothing sets the mood quite like

Warren Miller or some Teton Gravity

Research.

turn_____around (33) Turning your mood around

Those verbs are classified into three main groups. They are verbs which

indicate ‘change’, such as change, improve, elevate, lighten, and turn around. This

group of verb can be subdivided into four kinds of ‘change’. The ‘change’ in this

meaning is without direction as change and ‘change into an upper way’ such as improve

and elevate. There also be ‘change from motion to stop’ as in the verbs, kill and last.

The swing in the phrase a mood swing expresses ‘change back and forth’.


45

The second group is meant ‘cause something happen’. They are set, evoke,

recall, dictate, modulate, strike and affect. The last category is verbs which cannot be

put in the first two groups. They are describe and gauge.

From all the verbs which are found in this study, it can be implied that mood

is dynamic. This is because verbs which are collocated with mood indicate ‘happen and

change’. However, there is no evidence from the data that mood are permanent stage

because there were no verbs signified ‘permanent property’ occur with mood. Verbs

which represent continuing actions were not either found with mood.

2. Adjectives or adjective phrases

Adjectives occur with mood in two structures. They are [Determiners +

adjective + mood] and [Determiner + mood + verb to be + adjective].

The adjectives which precede mood are varied. However, they are classified

into five groups. Firstly, they are adjectives concerning group of people such as national

and public. Secondly, they are adjectives about feelings. They are depress, depressive,

depressed and delightful. Thirdly, they are polarity adjectives. They are good, bad,

positive and negative. Fourthly, they are adjectives related to fields of study. They are

political and melodramatic. Lastly, they are miscellaneous adjectives such as casual, fighting and herbal.

In addition, there were also adjectives which were used to modified mood.

They occur in verb phrases as in the pattern; [the mood + verb + adjective]. The list of

adjectives used in this structure is festive, idyllic, relaxed, and frustrated.

From the adjectives used, it can be entailed that mood are defined in three

ways. The mood is abstract emotional feeling as it collocated with emotion terms for

instance, a depressed mood. The mood is not only individual but collective as it can be

seen in a national mood and public mood. Moreover, mood can be evaluated as good or

bad, positive or negative.

3. Noun or noun phrases

Noun phrases which co-occur with in the mood of are abstract and mostly

about feeling or attitudes. This structure is found twenty nine sentences out of the

corpus. As shown in (34)– (36)

(34) the mood of frustration

(35) in a mood of strict confidentiality

(36) in a mood of acceptance

On the other hand, noun phrase which follow in the mood for are mainly

related to food and drinks.

Semantic and contextual analysis of mood

The hypothesis of this study is that noun phrases co-occurring with the word

mood contain conceptual closeness with the word mood. These noun phrases may be

the contextual clues which provide guidelines of which topic should mood be used in.


46

Noun phrases found in the pattern of [NP or/and a mood], [mood and/or NP],

and noun phrases which stood in the same sentence were collected and treated as data.

Noun phrases which occurred in the structure were classified and labeled. The result

showed that mood was used in seven contexts as listed with examples below.

Context which mood is used Example

Music, film or literature context (37) James Taylor in 1968 to Hourglass

in 1997, is of a piece in both mood and

lyrics.

(38) that becomes increasingly

irrelevant as the mood and filmmaking

heat up.

(39) This opening to a novel wins points

for mood and atmosphere, but falters on

point of view

(40) The mood and tone established in

the beginning foreshadow the general

mood and tone of the entire story.

Feelings of group or public context (41) that they became thermometers of

the public mood and the great racial

divisions in our society.

Physical or chemical organism context (42) She was " normal, " in mood and

level of energy alike, but her place on

the normal spectrum had changed

(43) Studies show that doing so for just

three weeks will improve your mood and

strengthen your immune system.

Political and society context (44) It says something about the

political mood and the landscape

politically of the country.

Attitude and opinion (45) Elizabeth Bowen was officially

employed by the British Government to

report on the mood and attitudes of the

Irish.

Psychological, emotion or feeling

context

(46) In stage two, mood and personality

disorders often emerged alongside

(47) that tries to factor how mood and

emotion might tie into the liking picture

(48) no other relationships were found

between thoughts and mood and feeling

change.

Interior design context (49) from her fifth-floor Philadelphia

studio, Ingersoll painted isolated city

buildings reminiscent in mood and motif

of the work of earlier American artists

such as Edward Hopper and Charles.


47

Summary and Recommendation In this study, eight patterns of the word mood were found. Mood can be used

in noun phrases, preposition phrases, and noun modifiers. Noun phrases with mood can

be either subject or object of verb.

Verbs collocating with mood shared common meanings in the sense of

‘change’ or ‘cause to be happen/change’.

Adjectives used with mood were varied. Researchers categorized them into

five groups: adjectives about groups of people, feelings, and fields of studies, polarity

adjectives, and others.

Noun phrases found in the pattern [in the mood of] and [in the mood for] are

all abstract. The word mood in the pattern [in the mood for] is mostly referred to food

or beverages.

Mood can be used to express feelings of individual groups such as public’s

mood or family’s mood. Moreover it can be used to express individual’s feelings as seen

in the pattern of [someone’s mood].

For its semantic and contextual analysis, there were seven contexts which

mood occurred. Interestingly, mood was used in the same senses of meanings in all

context. Firstly, it can be implied that mood was dynamic. The mood was abstract,

concerning emotional feelings, and indicated not only individual but collective feelings.

Moreover, mood, as co-occurred with both words good and bad, connoted positive or

negative meanings. It can be used interchangeably with attitude or opinion.

This study of mood should be compared with the study of mood in other fields.

As in Robbins (2001), mood is defined as feelings that tend to be less intense than

emotions and lacks of contextual stimulus. Moreover, mood is believed to take long

duration. The usage and semantic pattern found in this study, however, is different from

the definition of mood in scientific definitions. No sense of intense or temporal focuses

were found in this study.

In conclusion, the word mood in this study shows patterns of structure,

meaning and usages. The patterns found are not accounted as a principles or rules of

mood but to expand the non-native people’s understandings of this word. Future

researches might examine more data of mood used.

References

Firth, J. R. (1968). Selected papers of JR Firth, 1952-59. Indiana University Press.

Firth, J. (1968). ‘A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930–1955’ in F. R. Palmer (ed.):

Selected Papers of J. R. Firth 1952–59. Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, pp. 1–32

Hunston, S., & Thompson, G. (Eds.). (2000). Evaluation in text: Authorial stance

and the construction of discourse: Authorial stance and the construction

of discourse. Oxford University Press, UK.

Roark, B., & Charniak, E. (1998). Noun-phrase co-occurrence statistics for

semiautomatic semantic lexicon construction. In Proceedings of the 17th

international conference on Computational linguistics-Volume 2 (pp. 1110-

1116). Association for Computational Linguistics.

Robbins, S. P. (2001). Organizational behavior, 14/E. Pearson Education India.


THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION

BY USING READING PACKAGES

OF PRATHOMSUKSA 4 STUDENTS

Wanthida Yoikratok1 Surachai Piyanukool2 and Chookiat Jarat3

1 M.A. Students, English Program, Humanities and Social Sciences, Buriram Rajabhat

University, [email protected] 2 Lecturer, English Program, Humanities and Social Sciences, Buriram Rajabhat

University, [email protected] 3 Lecturer, English Program, Humanities and Social Sciences, Buriram Rajabhat

University, k choo k @yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The purposes of this study were to 1) study the efficiency of teaching

reading comprehension by using reading packages of the Prathomsuksa 4 student

studying at Bankudhin School. The efficiency is set at 75/75. 2) compare the reading

comprehension achievement of students before and after learning reading

comprehension by using reading packages. 3) study the effectiveness index of students’

learning reading comprehension by using reading packages and 4) survey the student’s

satisfaction toward learning reading comprehension by using reading packages. The

samples of this study were 7 Prathomsuksa 4 students who were studying Fundamental

English subject in the first semester of academic year 2016 at Bankudhin School,

Sakaow Province, with the One Group Pretest-Posttest design. The reading packages

were constructed by the researcher. This study found that 1) the efficiency of teaching

reading comprehension by using reading packages was 82.86/87.44; 2) the reading

comprehension scores of the students after studying with the reading packages were

higher than before studying at .01 level of statistical significant difference; 3) the

Effectiveness Index of reading packages was .77; and 4) the students’ satisfaction

towards learning reading packages was 4.48. The efficiency of the reading packages

was higher than the set criteria because each package included clear explanation,

interesting material, and exercises. The students’ posttest scores were higher than the

pretest scores; and the effectiveness index was 77% because the students learned

reading through reading packages. The packages were joyful, easy to understand,

interesting and they can apply in daily life.

Keywords: Reading packages, Reading comprehension, Efficiency, Effectiveness

Index, Satisfaction

Introduction

Reading is one of the most important skills for English language and its

one of the four necessary important language skills. When students read, they use a

variety of strategies to comprehend what they read. Reading is a valuable way of

self -educating because reading is the best way to improve readers’ mind and if

readers want to get smart and stay smart, they can search over the average person

that they need to learn new things. Reading is one of the best ways to learn and

expand readers’ knowledge. Reading can also help the readers’ brain sharp and


49

active which will help readers to develop their mind instead of allowing it to become

stale, dormant and unused.

In the field of teaching, reading is considered as one of the important areas of

teaching. It is one of the most important academic skills. It is also a major pillar upon

which teaching and learning process are built. Reading ability plays a central role in

teaching and learning success at all education. The students need to improve their

English skills in order to understand the teaching and learning materials. The students

will be on the road to academic failure, if they could not read.

As we know, English has been taught as a foreign language in Thailand. In

educational institutes or schools, English is the fundamental subject or core subject

which comprise students have to study. For this situation, most teachers practice the

students’ reading skill more than the other skills and (Eskey. 1998 : 21). Thanyaporn

Tantidanai (2007) stated that among the four skills of English skill that is used most

was reading skill. According to Dubin (1982 : 7) and Juttiwattara (1998 : 1), good

readers had more opportunities to get information from varieties of books because they

read correctly, fast and read a lot. Chatwirote (2006 : 1) pointed out that reading is

essential in daily life of human being. People who read better can search for more

knowledge information and develop themselves more in every area. They can study to

gain more knowledge and more opportunities for career in the future if they were trained

when they were young.

According to the importance of reading, learners must develop their reading

skill. Ridchan (2003 : 3) stated that the learners take time to read most both in the

classroom and outside the classroom. Gebhard (1987: 24-25) said that the readers can

apply their reading knowledge to use in the daily life because the importance of reading

skills. It was essential to train the children from infancy, preschool age, preadolescents,

reproductive age, adulthood, and old age. Every age must be instilled in the form of

reading process which comprises of decoding skills, word processing skills,

comprehension reading skills and critical reading skills; Therefore, they can use various

reading strategies and read varieties of books. Continue reading brings reading

behaviors to children and the most importance is the students are eager to seek for

knowledge and stay in learning social. Chatwirote (2006 : 1) stated that teaching

English reading skill must improve daily life of learners.

Children who have reading problem may be the results from the following

reasons. First, the material may be written at a level that is beyond their current

independent reading skill level. Second, they may have limited prior knowledge about

the content being read or have limited vocabulary knowledge. This can lead to

confusion during reading and in class discussion about what is being read. Third, they

may not be aware of how the reading material is structured as in the elements of story

structure, the organization of the material in a text book, or the characteristics of the

genre of literature being read. Fourth, the meaning of sentences and passages may

become lost as the reader struggle with the mechanics of reading. This leads to difficulty

remembering what was read. Fifth, they may have difficulty determining what

information is important in written passages.


50

Reading is an active process because it involves interaction between the reader

and the text. In reading a text, the reader needs to process the information that he/she

gets from the text in his/her brain. Students are constantly confronted with new

information, particularly once they progress to the upper elementary grades and

transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” (Chall, 1983). To read to learn

effectively students need to integrate new material into their existing knowledge base,

construct new understanding, and adapt existing conceptions and beliefs as needed.

According to a study by Pearson, Rochler, Dole, and Duffy (1992) on

“Developing expertise in reading comprehension”, a good reader usually use prior

knowledge to make sense of new information; ask question about the text before during,

and after reading; draw inferences from text; monitor comprehension; use fix up

strategies when meaning breaks down; determine what is important; and synthesize

information to create sensory image.

Effectively addressing these factors affecting comprehension may require the use of

various strategies.

Reading comprehension is considered as the real core for reading process.

Durkin (1993) assumed that comprehension is the peak of the reading skills and the

bases for all reading processes. Teaching students to read with a good comprehension

must be teachers’ highest priority. Most of EFL teacher have wondered what they might

do to improve their students’ reading comprehension achievement. The students can

read words with lack of understanding of what they read. Without comprehension,

reading for pleasure or knowledge is impossible. The teachers of English often assume

that students will learn to comprehend merely by reading. Students with good

comprehension use strategies in reading to learn new concepts, get deeply involved in

what they are reading, critically evaluate what they read, and apply their knowledge to

the passages as well as wisdom; but many students fail in doing these things. According

to Cuesta (2003: 171-206), many students take reading for granted. They feel too busy

to read, or they may not enjoy reading. Generally, EFL students can only read without

being able to correlate the reading they have just read with the knowledge they have.

In my own experience of teaching reading comprehension at Phattaraborbhit

School and Buriram Agriculture and Technology, students’ ability in reading

comprehension is low, they cannot understand the reading passage well because of their

low linguistic competence, this appears to be the main problem in reading

comprehension for students.

When the researcher was studying at Buriram Rajabhat University, the

researcher learned the teaching reading method – task – based method. It seems reading

interesting and possible to be used with my students. The idea of this method was

presented in reading packages that the researcher would like to teach reading

comprehension by using reading packages with my students. Samuel Kirk and the board

(1965) support that reading package are designed primary to aid children who have

become restarted in reading. In general, the reading packages are most effective with

children having the following characteristics: (1) the reading status of the child is below

the fourth grade; (2) the child has a severe special reading disability; (3) the child is

educable in sound blending; (4) any extreme visual or auditory defects have been

corrected; (5) the child is motivated and cooperative. In many cases cooperation may


51

be difficult until some degree of success has been attained. However, the researcher

believe that the advantage of reading packages help the students benefit or able to apply

knowledge through interaction. Students connect with the material when they work

with texts and concepts beyond a one-time exposure. When students practice using the

knowledge through application, they connect information on a deeper level. There are

potential drawbacks to practice with exercise. Teachers need to make sure that when

having students practice, there is a clear link between concept and action. Students must

be able to relate what they are doing to what they are learning. For the teachers, when

planning appropriately, they include practice time for students. Students in all grades

benefit practice from exercise packages because they deepen their understanding and

increase familiarity with the material. Similarly, drills or instructions are useful to

reinforce and practice more rote knowledge and skills. With this method students are

activating knowledge through application.

Research Objectives

This study comprises 4 objectives.

1. To study the efficiency of teaching reading comprehension by using reading

packages of the Prathomsuksa 4 student studying at Bankudhin School. The efficiency

is set at 75/75.

2. To compare the reading comprehension achievement of students before and

after learning reading comprehension by using reading packages.

3. To study the index of effectiveness of students’ learning reading

comprehension by using reading packages.

4. To survey the student’s satisfaction toward learning reading comprehension

by using reading packages.

Methodology

3.1 Population and Samples

The population is 7 students who were studying in Prathomsuksa 4 at

Bankudhin School in the first semester of academic year 2016 and they were the

samples of this study because the author is teaching in this school and there are only 7

students.

3.2 Research Instruments

This study had 4 research instruments: 1) 7 reading packages, 2) lesson plans,

3) an achievement test (pretest and posttest) and 4) satisfaction questionnaire. Five

lesson plans and seven reading packages were written by researcher. The pretest and

posttest were 4 multiple choices test with 25 questions each and the satisfaction

questionnaire was employed to check the students’ satisfaction through reading

packages.

3.3 Data Collection

The procedures for collecting data were as following.

3.3.1 Take the reading packages to the three experts to give comments and

suggestions, try out with the three steps of the pre-trials before studying with the

samples.

3.3.2 A study was done with a pre-test. A pre-test was given to all of sample

at the beginning of a class for 1 period.

3.3.3 The samples were orientated to understand about learning via reading


52

package and did the activities for 14 periods.

3.3.4 A post-test was administered with all of the samples after the class for 1

period.

3.3.5 Survey the students’ satisfaction by the questionnaire.

3.4 Data Analysis

The students’ pretest and posttest scores were analyzed by the statistics

percentage, mean and standard deviation, while the satisfaction was analyzed only by

mean and standard deviation.

4.Research Results

The results of this study were shown in accordance with the research purposes.

4.1 The efficiency of reading packages, researcher employed the quantitative

data from the test and achievement test based on criterion set at 75/75. The

quantitative data consisted of the activities scores from all reading packages and score

of the achievement test or post-test was 25 score.

Table 1 Mean and Standard Deviation, and Percentage for each Reading Packages

No.

Activities Scores of Learning through Reading Packages

(Efficiency of the Process) Total

(70)

Post-

test

(25) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 8 7 8 6 9 7 5 50 18

2 9 9 6 8 9 7 7 55 20

3 7 9 10 8 8 9 8 59 22

4 8 8 7 9 7 6 6 51 20

5 10 10 9 9 8 8 10 64 24

6 10 8 9 9 10 10 9 65 25

7 10 9 9 8 9 8 9 62 24

Total 62 60 58 57 60 55 54 406 153

( )X 8.86 8.57 8.29 8.14 8.57 7.86 7.71 58.00 21.86

Table 1 Continued

No.

Activities Scores of Learning through Reading Packages

(Efficiency of the Process) Total

(70)

Post-

test

(25) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

S.D. 1.22 0.97 1.38 1.07 0.97 1.35 1.80 6.11 2.61

% 88.57 85.71 82.86 81.43 85.71 78.57 77.14 82.86 87.44

As shown in Table 1, the efficiency of reading packages were82.86/87.44

which was higher than the criterion set at 75/75.

4.2 The comparison of the difference between pre-test and post-test mean

scores. The posttest mean score was higher statistically than the pretest mean score for

this study.


53

Table 2 Difference between Pre-test and Post-test Mean Scores

Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

Mean t df

Sig. (2-

tailed)

Pair 1 Pre-test

Post-test

11.2857 1.11270 .42056 -13.014 6 .000

21.8571 2.60951 .098630

From the Table 2, the posttest mean score was higher than the pretest mean

score. It was statistical significant different at .01 level.

4.3 The effectiveness index (E.I.) of the students who learn reading

comprehension by using reading packages. The pre-test scores (25 items) and post-test

scores (25 items) were calculated to find out the effectiveness index of reading

packages.

Table 3 The Effectiveness Index of Reading Packages

Number of

Students

(n)

Total Scores

Total Scores of

All Samples’

Pre-test

Total Scores of

All Samples’

post-test

The

Effectiveness

Index (E.I.)

7 25 77 153 0.7755

As shown in Table 3, the effectiveness index of reading packages of reading

comprehension for Prathomsuksa 4 students, which were conducted by the researcher,

is at 0.7755. It showed that students progressed from learning through reading packages

at 77.55%

4.4 The satisfaction of the students towards learning reading comprehension by

using reading packages. The researcher surveyed the satisfaction by having the students

answer the five rating scale questionnaire; then the researcher found the following

results.


54

Table 4 Learners’ Satisfaction towards Learning Reading Packages

No Statements

The Result of

Learners’

Satisfaction Meaning Rank

( )X S.D.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

I enjoy the activities provided in the reading

packages.

I learned from reading packages and could

apply them in my daily life.

Practicing various activities from reading

packages was interesting.

The reading packages were understand and

easy to do.

The contents and activities were relevant.

The contents and activities are suitable with

my English level.

Learning through using reading packages

technique helped improve my reading ability.

Learning through using a reading packages

technique helped me understand the contents

well.

The examples in the contents and activities of

the lesson were interesting.

Learning reading comprehension by using

reading packages was useful for my future.

I feel motivated when learning English by

doing and practicing the reading packages.

Learning through lessons enhanced my

learning.

Learning through a reading packages

technique helped me improve my critical

thinking.

5.00

4.57

4.71

4.57

3.85

4.00

4.42

4.57

4.42

4.57

4.42

4.14

4.71

0.00

.53

.48

.53

.69

.81

.78

.78

.53

.78

.53

.89

.48

.78

The Most

Satisfactory

The Most

Satisfactory

The Most

Satisfactory

The Most

Satisfactory

Very

satisfactory

Very

satisfactory

Very

satisfactory

The Most

Satisfactory

Very

satisfactory

The Most

Satisfactory

Very

satisfactory

Very

satisfactory

The Most

Satisfactory

Very

satisfactory

1

4

3

4

9

8

6

4

6

4

6

7

3

6


55

Table 4 Continued

No Statements

The Result of

Learners’

Satisfaction Meaning Rank

( )X S.D.

14

Learning reading comprehension through using

a reading packages technique helped me

improve speaking skill.

4.42

15 I have a positive attitude toward learning

English after learning reading packages. 4.85 .37

The Most

Satisfactor

y

2

Grand Total 4.48 .29

Very

satisfactory

Table 4 indicated that the students’ satisfactions in learning reading

comprehension by using reading packages as a whole were at “very satisfactory” level

( )X = 4.48, S.D. = .29.

Discussion The discussion will be based on the research objectives and results; therefore,

there were 4 issues of discussion.

5.1 The efficiency of reading packages was 82.86/87.44 which was higher than

the criterion set at 75/75 because the reading packages were developed appropriately

step by step in three trails; an individual, a small group, and field trail to see both good

and bad points of reading packages, its might be the students were interested in doing

activities in the reading packages. The students’ attention on the content of the text

through open mean-based questions about the text and expository learning probes

McKeon, Beck and Blake (2009).The purpose of this study investigation was to

investigate whether the students can increase their reading comprehension achievement

after participating in a reading Singtuen (2009), however the students also perceived

the ideas of reading process and specific skills related to reading comprehension

process.

5.2 The result reveals that the achievement of the students’ post-test mean scores

were higher than the pre-test mean scores towards teaching reading comprehension by

using reading packages with statistically significant difference at .05 level. This could

be concluded that reading package had the efficiency because it could make the students

achieve higher learning. It is quite new for the students to learn reading comprehension

by using reading package. It can motivate the students to learn and interested in the

content more than they used to be. This research supported by Nuttall (1996) compared

a higher-level process, readers are concerned primarily with integration of textual

information in their experiences to understand the text to make conscious to use the

approach like an eagle’s eyes view of the landscape and to see the overall purpose of


56

the text, the eagle can see a wide area spread out below, it’s seem like to understanding

the nature of whole better than an observer on the ground.

5.3 The effectiveness index of the students learned reading comprehension by

using reading packages was 0.7755 that mean the students’ learning progress was

77.55%. For the results was calculated from the total of pretest and posttest scores and

the number of the students, if the posttest score were statistical significant different than

the pretest score the students’ progress will be high. The 77.55% progress is the result

of the reading packages and learning, teaching activities. Hovland (1949) supported that

the relationship of the study will be done properly, the baseline of scores are different,

so the indicator the scope and efficiency of the media are the effectiveness index.

5.4 The result illustrates that students’ satisfactions of teaching reading

comprehension by using reading package were at very satisfactory level. The findings

show that ( )X = 4.48, S.D. = .29. They enjoyed the activities provided in the reading

packages. This could be explained that the students happy and they have positive

feelings towards their learning activities, Chen Hsiao and Lee (2007). Learning through

the reading packages technique helped me improve my critical thinking that the

satisfaction is perception towards certain learning events or learners’ attitudes

expectation, Tough (1982)

Conclusion

This study met all the 4 objective set: 1) efficiency of the reading packages was

82.86/87.44; 2) The posttest scores were statistical significant different from the pretest

scores at .01 level ; 3) The effectiveness index was 77.55% and 4) The students’

satisfaction was at very satisfactory level.

Recommendations

As a result of the findings from the study, the researcher made useful

pedagogical implications as following.

7.1 The reading packages support learning achievement of students.

Accordingly, administrators, teachers, and related persons in learning management

should apply the lesson plans, and learning reading comprehension by using reading

package on Prathomsuksa 4 students to develop instruction in other contents or

departments.

7.2 Learning via reading comprehension, teachers should make suggestions and

comment, to the students on the use reading package step by step by focusing on

discipline, faithfulness, and patience.

7.3 Persons concerned with learning management should hold workshop in

conduction educational innovation and supervise to solve the instructional obstacles.

Furthermore, they should support teachers to use reading package in development of

students’ learning, which make students achieve in learning.


57

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